


American Purgatory

by nocturnalboys



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Cryptids, M/M, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-11-16 04:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 36,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11245959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nocturnalboys/pseuds/nocturnalboys
Summary: Hakuryuu Ren, along with his best friends Sphintus Carmen and Titus Alexius, decides to spend his Summer hunting down a being that can neither be proved nor disproved by science. Judal, on the other hand, begins to enjoy all the attention.(rating may change)





	1. Hakuryuu

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I am back! With a regularly updating fic! This, like TMWIH, will update every Monday indefinitely and I hope that y'all enjoy it because boy did I spend a lot of time coming up with it :D  
> In later chapters, some links will be included in the description as a supplement to the story, and looking through them as they show up is recommended! Thank you for reading!!!!!

It was a bright, cheery, mid-Spring afternoon, but in spite of this, Hakuryuu’s dorm window was shuttered, the blinds transforming the room into something of a glum cave. Originally, they’d only been drawn to help him sleep later than usual, but new events made the semi-darkness just feel more appropriate. Turned on his side in bed, Hakuryuu let a sigh escape through his nose. He opened the email for a fifth time, and began to read.

I don’t know what you’ve been up to, it read, but I haven’t seen you since August, and you can’t run from your family forever. I don’t know what your problem is, but you are my daughter and I love you. I’m just telling you in advance, we’re having a cook-out when Hakuei graduates, and you’re going to be there. Try not to be depressing, please.

He closed it again, turning off his phone and tossing it down to the carpet, where it landed with a dull thump. He couldn’t go, of course. The last time he came face-to-face with his mother, he’d come perilously close to being disowned. There were new dangers now, as well. Hakuryuu slipped his hand under the collar of his faded pajama shirt, poking the puckered line of new scar tissue just below the fifth rib. 

She would notice that maybe after she noticed that his face was no longer soft or smooth; repeated botched shaving attempts left his jawline smattered with cherry red cuts, bright and glaring compared with the faded burns ringing his left eye. And when he opened his mouth, she would hear a voice not even a mother could recognize.

He could not go. Hakuei would understand, but it would be uncomfortable, he knew. But in his heart of hearts, a secret whisper, he also knew that somehow, one way or another, he would have to show his face. Face the consequences, or die trying, right?

Carefully, Hakuryuu probed first one scar, then the other. They were the most expensive things to his name. At this point, it didn’t matter what she threatened him with; what was done, was done.

In the adjoining bathroom, the shower turned abruptly off. It had been on since Hakuryuu woke, the gentle thrumming of water droplets on plastic blending in with the background symphony of breeze and bird calls. Now that it was stopped, there was an almost tangible gap in the soundscape. Hakuryuu sat up, glancing towards the door just as it swung open.

“Oh, hey, you’re finally awake!” Titus stepped out, drying his hair with a hand towel, damp blond strands sticking to his neck. “Are you gonna get dressed or shower or anything?” Taking in his roommate’s outfit, overall shorts and a pale blue button-up, the memory of what they’d planned for the day re-surfaced. 

“Fuck.” He checked the alarm clock, pushing his hair flat against his scalp. “Sphin’s gonna be here any minute now, I-”

Titus stopped him, dropping his towel into a cairn of its discarded fellows. “Ryuu. Look at me.” When Hakuryuu didn’t meet his eyes, Titus marched to the foot of the bed, plopping down on it. “You’re sad. What happened, hm?”

“You can always tell. No use hiding.” Hakuryuu laughed weakly, taking his rudimentary prosthetic from his bedside table and clicking it into place. “It’s… y’know, her.”

“What’d she do this time?” Titus leaned closer, eyebrows knitting together. 

Wordlessly, Hakuryuu reached over the side of the bed, turned his phone back on, and passed it to Titus. 

Titus drew a hissing breath through his teeth. “That witch is back at it again, I see… what are you gonna do? I’m glad of all the things my mom could be a freak about she chose grades and my allergies, not who I am.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m so damn jealous of you.” Hakuryuu murmured, getting gingerly out of bed. “I can’t even imagine a world where I come out and it’s fine, no big deal. She keeps saying she loves me, but it’s to make herself feel better, I bet.”

“If it means anything, I’m really sorry.” Titus frowned, his gaze darting away. “I mean, about everything. About her most of all.”

Putting on a brave face, Hakuryuu looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, me too. I thought when I left I’d be rid of her, basically for good. But it still feels like she’s just over my shoulder all the time.”

Titus smiled, blue-grey eyes softening, the mole just above his cheekbone migrating slightly northward. “Someday she won’t be. I promise you.” In spite of himself, Hakuryuu let his friend’s stalwart optimism quiet the anxiety roiling in his gut. 

“I believe you.” He replied, locating a pair of gray cut-offs and a loose tank top. “Do you think this would make me look douchey?”

“Pft, no way. Not unless you wear Adidas with socks too, or anything Nike.” Titus snorted, vacating the bed and moving to the windowsill, where he raised the blinds, allowing a wave of yellow sunlight to wash inside. “Ryuu, can I water these?” He gestured to the rows of terrariums, filled with plants basking in the midday glow.

Hakuryuu tossed his shirt towards the hamper and missed. “Go ahead, but be careful not to touch them. They’ll think you’re a bug, and it costs them tons of energy to move.”

Humming, Titus collected the spray bottle, gently spritzing the peat under a young venus flytrap. “They’re really cute. Not as cute as say, a kitten, but still cute.”

“Titus, cats give you massive hives.”

“Let me live, jeez Ryuu. Everybody makes sacrifices.”

Titus was always making light of his allergies, but Hakuryuu knew his roommate had more EpiPens than the average pharmacy. “Sure. So where are we going, exactly? Sphintus changed his mind like a million times.”

“Uh… last I heard, it was a museum. But we’re definitely going somewhere fancy for dinner. Or fancy-ish.” Titus grinned. “Don’t we deserve a pat on the back? Only one more year until we all get our Bachelor’s!”

Rolling his eyes, Hakuryuu peeked at himself in the mirror. Not too bad, really, for a guy with one arm and a patchwork of scars. “Easy for you to say. You have a major. And what are you, fourth in the class?”

“Nope, I got moved back to fifth. I’m sure you’ll find your calling sooner or later.”

The buzzer went off just outside. “Guys?” Sphintus’s voice filtered in from under the door. “You awake in there?”

“Coming!” Titus called back, taking hold of Hakuryuu by the elbow. “We are gonna have fun today, I swear. You’ll forget all about that awful woman.”

Hakuryuu allowed a smile to creep onto his face. “I’ll try. I’ll do my best.” It was all he really could do.


	2. Three Years Ago

It was so dark below the last step, the scent of mildew and exposed insulation drifting up through the pitch. The darkness seemed to breath, undulating in and out like the tide, drawing the young man further down the stairs until his bare feet met the chill of the concrete. 

He was drunk, probably, and it was his first time ever having been. The last thing he could recall was the red and white sign that lured him off the road and into… it was a bar, wasn’t it?

The darkness felt safe. In fact, as he wandered further inside, he felt more relaxed than he’d been in weeks. And then it spoke to him.

_Closer. Closer._

It wasn’t a frightening voice, but it was very old, and felt charged with a timeless chaos. The young man obeyed, walking faster, feeling remarkably sober. Perhaps he wasn’t drunk after all, only tired, and in this place of no light, the exhaustion sloughed off him like dead skin.

 _Here._ The voice sighed, from deep within the earth.

He reached out. Touched the curved stone edge of… was it a well? He could hear water rushing and burbling below.

 _You have come a long way._ The voice echoed, sighing. _Human child, I sense a familiar presence in you. I see myself in your heart._ There was a short pause. _You have suffered. You suffer still. You are lost._

The young man was lost. Very, very lost. A nameless panic welled up through him, pushing at last down his cheeks in damp streams. “I know that.” He answered, not finding the strength to wipe them away.

_You can hear my voice, and yet you are not afraid._

He shook his head. “Yeah, and why would I be?”

_I would like to make a deal with you._

“Hmph. What kind?” The young man was wary of deals. He had learned the better of trust.

_How would you like to go anywhere you want? Do anything you desire? Quiet the fear within yourself?_

He considered. “Hell yeah, who wouldn’t want that? But how? Why?”

The voice from the well rose, as did the scent of mould. _I lack a physical form, but yours would suit me perfectly. You and I understand each other. I could enter your body, and dwell there. You and I would become one creature._

“Would I be changed? Would I be a different person?”

_Not at all. You would become yourself, realized, and then some._

At last, the young man wiped his face. He laughed, the sound resonating as though he stood in a cathedral or a cave, not the unfinished basement of a roadside pub. “Fuck… now this is an offer I can’t refuse.”


	3. Sphintus

Sphintus Carmen, much to his own chagrin more than anyone’s, still lived at home, in the loft above his parent’s restaurant. It will be much less expensive than living on campus, his mother had said. You can keep working for us, isn’t that wonderful? his father had added. But while delivering overpriced Turkish food wasn’t exactly Sphintus’ idea of a bad time, spending an extra four years harassed by a horde of younger siblings definitely wasn’t his idea of a good one.

Fending off his six-year-old sister, Sphintus herded Titus and Hakuryuu into his bedroom, swiftly drawing the door closed before she could pester him for something new. “See you guys, this is what you get, not wanting to walk back to your place. You get sticky children and this.” He swept an arm out, motioning to a long table laden with glass tanks heat lamps.

Titus snorted, immediately dropping down head-center on Sphintus’ mattress. “I like the snakes, and I think I’d rather deal with a few loud kids than have to walk home through Cambridge at night. Right Hakuryuu?”

Hakuryuu, observed Sphintus, pulled his thousandth grimace of the evening. “I can’t say the same about the reptiles, but once upon a time, I was a grubby rugrat too. This is just payback for all the times I bothered my siblings.”

“Hmph. Suit yourselves.” Sphintus shrugged. Did he want to join Titus on the bed, or would that be weird? A better question would be, why did he think it might be weird in the first place? He sat down in his desk chair instead, letting his thoughts polarize back to Hakuryuu. There was something off about Hakuryuu, but neither he nor Titus seemed willing to let him in on it. After this jaunt around the Museum of Fine Arts, the three of them had patronized a very expensive southwestern grill that left Sphintus’ wallet gasping for breath. But Hakuryuu, ever willing to let himself get entangled in worries, just stared at his plate until it got cold. 

Sphintus couldn’t just ask him what was wrong. Shit, it just never felt like his place to pry. Hakuryuu was somehow always there to listen when Sphintus needed to get something off his chest, but god forbid he return the favor.

Titus was already reclining lazily on the bed as if he slept on it every night. “What do we do now? Just chill?”

Hakuryuu gently set down his knapsack on one corner of the snake table, sitting down on Titus’ other side, closer to the wall. “I’m fine with doing nothing. I think I’ve had more than enough fun for one day.” Hakuryuu, thought Sphintus, could probably use as much fun as he could get. 

“Sure, yeah.” Sphintus added, popping open his laptop. “I’m probably gonna wipe out any minute now, though. Gotta catch up on my beauty sleep.”

“Aw, have fun sleeping on the floor.” Titus heckled from the bed, snatching a blanket and spreading his arms in order to eat up and extra room it might have possessed. 

Hakuryuu took that moment to sigh heavily. Sphintus knew that sound. It reeked of depression. What could he do to turn shit around? “Oh, I sure will. It comforts me, though, that no matter where I sleep, I will never look as stupid as that guy we saw at the museum today, right?”

Snorting, Titus rolled his eyes. “Why on earth weren’t they kicking him out? I’m not complaining, it was really funny, but his outfit must’ve been breaking like, all of the rules. All of them.”

“Maybe,” Hakuryuu raised his voice, finally cracking a smile, “today is actually opposite day, and none of us remembered, No shirt, no shoes, double the service. And to be completely honest, cellophane wrap makes excellent stockings. Plus, his hat alone could’ve been an exhibit. Performance art?”

“Oh, sure,” Sphintus volleyed back, trying to keep the conversation ball in the air, “but that doesn’t explain why he was chatting it up with King Ramses or whoever in broad daylight. Like, I think once you die and they embalm you and you spend hundreds of years in a tomb, no amount of display case glamor is gonna bring you back to life. He might as well have been shooting the breeze with a goddamn brick.”

“We’re ignoring the real question here, which is how he lives with hair that long? He could’ve been impersonating Rapunzel no problem. What shampoo is he using, and how long does that take to brush?” Titus laughed, “He probably wouldn’t even need clothes if he would just wrap all that hair around in the right spots!”

Hakuryuu looked a bit better with a smile on his face, thought Sphintus. Things would probably turn out alright. Whatever was bothering him would fade, eventually. It always did. Sure enough, as exhaustion began to really take hold over the three of them, Hakuryuu settled down with his back against the wall, scrolling lazily through one social media site or another. 

As he had dozens of times before, Titus went directly from 100 down to zero, falling fast asleep in a matter of seconds. It looked like Sphintus really was destined to sleep on the carpet after all. Just as he was excavating his sleeping bag from a densely cluttered closet, though, Hakuryuu gasped loudly, sitting upright.  
“Sphintus, come look at this. Tell me this doesn’t sound familiar.” He thrust out his phone, wiggling it in the air, a bright, strange look in his eyes. 

Curiosity wasted no time in compelling Sphintus. Dropping the sleeping bag, he accepted the device, and began to read.

He paused a moment or two in. “‘East Coast Cryptid Wiki,’ Ryuu? I am all for cryptozoology, believe me, but shit, I don’t think we’ve ever met Sasquatch.”

Hakuryuu shook his head, dismissively. “Sphin, just read it. Please. You’ll see.”

_The Appalachian Revenant_

_Description: The first sighting of the Revenant occurred in Kentucky, on the fringes of Appalachia; hence its name. The Revenant is humanoid, and from a distance may appear human, but approaching it directly will reveal significantly inhuman characteristics. The Revenant has pale, paper-white skin, and stands at around five feet eight inches tall, with black hair that falls almost to the floor. Its eyes are round and luminous, and nearly always shine red. Its limbs are long and gaunt, unnaturally so. It has proven capable of human speech and intelligence, inhuman feats, and, in some instances, it may be incredibly dangerous._

_Despite the three close-quarters encounters that have taken place, no photographic or otherwise tangible evidence of this cryptid exists._

“No fucking way,” Sphintus didn’t even need to read the next section. The introduction was more than enough for the striking resemblance to smack him upside the head. “It’s that guy from today, that weird guy!”

Titus stirred, making a grunting sound. “Wha… what’s going on, why are we awake?”

“Read this,” Sphintus plopped the phone into Titus’ hand. 

“What should we do?” Hakuryuu shook his head again, slower. “Do you think we should try to talk to the guy who made the page? Could we report what we saw today? I mean, if the weird museum guy even is this Revenant thing.”

Titus, suddenly wide awake, propped himself up on his elbow. “Their username is ‘40Thieves’... Y’know, why not? Let’s try to message them! What do we have to lose? We could get our account added to the page!”

“I’ll do it.” Hakuryuu took back his phone. “I did find the page in the first place. I’ll just have to make an account and I’ll be all set. If they message back, I’ll let you two know.”

“If I didn’t know any better,” Sphintus grinned, lightly shoving Hakuryuu’s shoulder, “I would say you look excited about this, Hakuryuu.”

“Do I?” Clearly this surprised him, but not in a bad way; his eyebrows were no longer separated lovers struggling to reunite. 

He sure as hell did. “Uh, yeah Hakuryuu, you look ready to try out for ‘Finding Bigfoot’.” Sphintus chuckled, getting back to the business of disentangling his sleeping bag. Maybe this was a distraction Hakuryuu needed. Besides that, while Sphintus certainly never doubted the supernatural, what were the odds that, just a few hours ago, he had spotted a real life paranormal being? This felt vaguely like the start of something. Or at least, that’s how the glow in Hakuryuu’s eyes made it seem.

***

H.Ren: Question about your page, ‘The Appalachian Revenant.’ Did you research that all yourself? Where is your info from? Have you actually seen it yourself?

40Thieves: Wow. Alright. So like, I really didn’t think anyone would respond to that, y’know? I made it for my dad to impress him or whatever he’s a sorta famous paranormal investigator he’s got a show and everything. But no, I haven’t seen it, and basically all of this is from the internet.

H.Ren: Okay. What if I told you I think my friends and I saw it today?

40Thieves: I’m not a pro man, but go for it. I just gotta ask, is this a prank??

H.Ren: I swear it isn’t. We saw it, or something very similar to it, enthusiastically talking to mummified bodies in the Egyptian exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

40Thieves: Um, talking to?

H.Ren: As far as I could tell, they weren’t responding, but I could hear it going on and on, in a sort of weird, rasping voice. It was animated, too, moving its hands, waiting for replies, etc.

H.Ren: Also it was wearing a hat made out of paper drink umbrellas.

H.Ren: Or he was. I think we’re dealing with a ‘he,’ if cryptids or spirits or what have you adhere to human concepts of gender. Double also, did you come up with the name?

40Thieves: Yep, that was all me. It’s a pretty slick name. My dad seemed to really enjoy it.

40Thieves: But whoa holy shit, can I add this? To the page, I mean? I’ll seem really dedicated if I keep updating it.

H.Ren: Yeah, I’m okay with that. I was just curious about it, too. It’s weird to come face to face with things like this. Oh, and this supports your idea that it was headed north-east. I wonder what it’s after.

40Thieves: Again, I really wasn’t expecting anybody to contact me… I’m glad you did though, I’ll have an update posted any day now. How wild is all this though, right? You happened to see it/him and come across this page on the same day?

40Thieves: That’s one helluva coincidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://east-coast-cryptid.wikia.com/wiki/East_Coast_Cryptid_Wiki
> 
> http://east-coast-cryptid.wikia.com/wiki/The_Appalachian_Revenant
> 
> Here are the links that correspond with today's chapter!! When more things happen on the site/are added to it in-story, they will appear on the real website, and you'll know because you'll see the link in the notes again! :)


	4. Titus

Some nights, Titus Alexius would dream about living with his mother again. They were hardly ever bad dreams. He would join her at her desk while she studied, read books together; even when he was very young, she would teach him. Sure, she was too afraid to let him outside. He never played with the other kids when they would band together in the nearby woods. Although, he never felt the unfairness of this in his dreams. 

When Titus woke in Sphintus’ bed, it took him a moment to recall how much he relished in his personal freedoms. Hakuryuu dozed peacefully beside him, a few hunks of hair sticking to his forehead. It had been Hakuryuu, as Titus’ roommate starting freshman year, that taught Titus to appreciate and put his autonomy to good use. Titus blinked a few times, accustoming himself to wakefulness, sliding out of bed as quietly as he could. 

Sphintus had a habit of always finding something to wrap himself around as he slept. In the dim morning glow, it was possible to make out his form on the floor, gripping tightly to his mostly empty backpack. Holding in a burst of laughter, Titus tiptoed out of the room and into the quiet, blue darkness of the hall. 

It was really a very average morning, as they came, so why did Titus feel excited? Did it have something to do with Hakuryuu’s online conversation the previous night? Titus felt that, just like a popular tv show advertised, he wanted to believe in the unknown. There was so much about the world he had no experience in to begin with, so was believing in the supernatural really much of a stretch? 

If they indeed had witnessed first-hand a creature neither provable nor disprovable by scientific means, so sue Titus if he wanted to have faith in more than empirical data.

Which probably wasn’t the best rhetoric for a college student with a prospective major in genetic engineering. 

The Carmen family bathroom was a sordid affair. Bath toys cluttered the bottom of the tub like glacial erratics, a plastic puffer fish making eye contact with Titus the instant he flipped the lights. A hamper in the corner overflowed onto a probably permanently damp bath mat. The counter was covered in blue children’s toothpaste stains. Picking a baby wipe out of a box on the edge of the counter, Titus gently swiped at the dark circles of mascara left under his eyes. 

Titus himself almost never had a problem with looking feminine; no, it was the being treated like a woman that truly got under his skin, not looking cute. Since neither of his friends treated him any differently when he wore make-up and the like, it was easy to let himself relax around them. He could wear whatever, whenever. And still, know how they would look at him. It was a relief, to say the least. 

Of course, being mistaken for a girl was always a sure-fire way to dampen his mood. It was becoming a thin line he walked. 

There was a soft knock at the door, but it rang oddly, the sound of plastic on wood. Titus nudged it open to reveal Hakuryuu, prosthetic raised, faced still puffed up with sleep. Tired though Hakuryuu was, Titus still caught his nose wrinkling at the sight of the bathroom. “Ew.” He muttered, gingerly opening a cabinet with one finger and taking a washcloth. 

“I know, right?” Titus laid his wipe flat on the crest of the teetering wastebasket, making a burial shroud of it. “The best part is I think Sphin is supposed to be the one in charge of cleaning it.”

Hakuryuu laughed, dampening a corner of the washcloth and dabbing at his face. “He’s clearly so great at keeping tidy. So. Are we gonna go straight home once Sphintus wakes up? We shouldn’t leave without letting him know first.”

“Depends on what you wanna do today, I guess!” Titus shrugged. “We could stick around here if Sphintus is okay with it.”

“First things first, I need coffee.” Hakuryuu tossed his washcloth into the hamper. “I needed it like five minutes ago. I can already feel a headache starting up.”

“We could go get some! I’m pretty sure my mom just sent me more money.”

 

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes, quitting the room. “You don’t know how lucky you are. You haven’t needed to get a job once the whole time you’ve been away from home.”

His mother always insisted on sending him a large deposit every few weeks. It was a rare sight that Titus’s bank account was nearing exhaustion. Meanwhile, Hakuryuu had held down four different jobs since he’d moved onto campus, most recently a cashier position at Hallmark, which he’d been forced to quit last week. No matter how Titus pressed him, he wouldn’t say why, but it was easy enough to make an educated guess. 

“Well, it’s not like I have a choice!”

“I didn’t say I was mad about it. I’m just jealous.”

Titus sighed, trailing him into the hall. Change the subject, he urged himself. Talking about money was never fun. “Yeah… oh, shit, look at you,” he gasped, “you almost have a five o’clock shadow!”

This comment drew Hakuryuu’s shoulders back a tad straighter. “Really?”

To be honest with himself, there was almost no hair at all, but if his words improved Hakuryuu’s mood, it was probably alright. “Hell yeah, you’re probably gonna need to shave again by tomorrow!”

Hakuryuu tried maybe a little too hard sometimes, but Titus could never blame him. Masculinity was both Hakuryuu’s dogma and his liberator, the cage, and the key. Hakuryuu, who didn’t have a father to teach him how to shave or an understanding mother to seek council from, never ceased to be delighted by the repeated attempts to learn himself. 

Titus, on the other hand, used to tell his mother everything. She would insist on it. In most things, she understood him. If he ever started needing to shave his own face, she would probably track him down to play both mother and father. 

Woken by their voices, Sphintus leaned out into the hall. “Hmph. Are you gonna quiet down and let me rest?” He had a texture mark from the backpack he’d been clenching sunken into his face. 

“It’s what, eight am? And we’re getting coffee. Come if you want.” Hakuryuu nudged him aside, lifting his knapsack from the reptile table. 

Sphintus scowled but yanked on a hoodie from a chair heaped with clothes. “Yeah, okay. Let’s feed Hakuryuu’s addiction. It’ll be fun.”

“I am not addicted to caffeine, I just die a little without it.” Hakuryuu mumbled, but swiftly located his sneakers.

The three of them managed to egress without waking a single child, which was a miracle in itself. It was already warm outside, pedestrians trickling past the ‘closed’ sign on Sphintus’ parent’s restaurant. Warm golden sunlight invaded the side street. Titus felt the ever-present need to sneeze and a powerful longing for a strong dose of Benadryl. 

A very fat, rotund bird touched down on the nearby asphalt, bobbing its head as they passed. Titus couldn’t help but smile. “Look at that! It’s a bird! It’s so round!” At this point, both Sphintus and Hakuryuu were used to Titus’ way of pointing out things they had long considered mundane. 

The fat bird ruffled its feathers, waddling into the crosswalk, and was promptly startled away when Sphintus jogged across to the other side. “What are we going for, Starbucks coffee, or like, McDonald's coffee?”

“I vote Starbucks since I’m paying!” Titus patted the lump his wallet made in the front pocket of his overalls. “My bank account can take a beating. Also, I’m not letting you guy pay for anything for the rest of the week.”

Sphintus mock-groaned. “Oh no, what a terrible punishment!”

“Did you mean ‘thank you’?” Hakuryuu crossed his arms, bemused.

“Aw, don’t worry, I know he’s grateful deep down.” Titus slung his arms around both their shoulders, steering them with his smaller, slighter body into a Starbucks on the next corner. 

Hakuryuu fell strangely silent once inside, but not in a particularly foreboding way. He was quiet while they waited on line, and Titus had to prod him in the shoulder to jolt him into ordering (a simple small iced coffee, with minimal sugar). He stared vacantly at the menu when Titus offered to get them some pastries for breakfast as well. 

His arms full with a sizable bag of sweet rolls, Titus went for a table near the row of windows looking out onto the sidewalk. Hakuryuu fiddled with the fingers of his prosthetic, gazing out with a half-thoughtful, half-glazed look in his eyes. 

Sphintus coughed. “Ryuu, are you alright? You’re being uh…”

Hakuryuu snapped back into himself. “I want to find him.” He said. Titus didn’t have to ask who he wanted to find. He felt the same, now that he considered it. They’d come across the Revenant once already, who was to say they wouldn’t again? 

Hakuryuu faced them, his filmy blue eyes focused for once. “No, I want more than to find him. That website said there’s no evidence he really exists. I think we should be the ones to get some.”


	5. Best Foot Forward

Hakuryuu didn’t lose his arm. It simply never grew past his elbow. His forming body, likely only a few cells wide, conveniently misplaced the blueprints for his entire left forearm and hand. So, it seemed to him, years later, when he could fully understand the probability of such a thing, that from the moment he was conceived, bad luck gravitated towards him. 

There were, however, a handful of moments Hakuryuu could safely label as serendipitous. When he walked under the archway leading into the next gallery, when he caught sight of the strange man leaning on the upright glass display case… that was surely one of them. 

The man was talking, mouth opening and closing, but Hakuryuu couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying. His hat nearly resembled a floppy sunhat, except that it was constructed entirely of colorful paper drink umbrellas. His hair, dark and thick, plunged to the polished floor in a braid, and beneath a pair of unassuming jean shorts… were his legs wrapped in cellophane?

Hakuryuu, first to catch sight of him, stared dumbly for a second before the man turned his head and caught his eye for a second more. His eyes were red; red as the sun over the equator, red as a ladybug’s shell, unmistakably pure red.

He was frightened, and then he was enraptured. His friends laughed to themselves about the strange man, and Hakuryuu laughed too, but he could not forget the way that shared look made him feel. Like there were real mysteries out there, enigmas he could grab and plunge into, places where he didn’t have to be afraid of what his mother thought about his surgery or his hair or his new (true) name. 

In the present, Sphintus made a face at him. “Uh, not to burst your bubble man, but that’s kind of… wild. We don’t even know where he is now and isn’t this how kids in horror movies die all the time? Chasing supernatural shit around until it stops being fun?”

“Isn’t wild good sometimes? When do we ever just get to fuck off and be irreverent?” Hakuryuu let the question hang, but he knew the answer for all three of them was ‘never’.

Titus shrugged slightly, his expression belying his eagerness. “It could definitely be fun. Like a big spooky adventure. Kind of like a vacation, but also like a quest.”

“Exactly. And… I think this might be just what I need to forget about that goddamn bar-b-que.”

Sphintus frowned, pausing with his coffee halfway to his mouth. “Wait, what bar-b-que?”

“My mom wants me to come home. Somehow I don’t think she’d appreciate seeing me in my current condition.” Hakuryuu muttered.

“Ah, fuck,” Sphintus winced, lowering his gaze, “right. In that case… I mean, there would be a lot to think about. We should be prepared and all that. But if we did properly plan for everything, I wouldn’t say no. Do we have a plan on how we’re gonna find him a second time?”

“Yeah, we need a plan!” Titus interjected. “We can’t just be wandering around!”

“We can cross that bridge when we get to it. At least we know what general direction he’s headed in… northeast.” Hakuryuu drummed his fingers on the tabletop thoughtfully. “For now, let’s talk about scheduling this. I want to start as soon as possible. We have today and tomorrow to get ready, and then I wanna say we can leave by nightfall.”

Sphintus let out a heavy sigh. “I agree, it would be better to get moving sooner rather than later. I’ll have to tell my parents I can’t work for a while. Plus since I’m the only one of us with a car, looks like we’re stuck in the delivery mobile.”

“If it’s okay, I’ll finance the whole thing. My mom doesn’t seem to be giving up on my allowance any time soon, so I might as well put it to good use. I’ll take care of food and gas and hotels, whatever we need.” Titus offered, looking towards Hakuryuu expectantly.

Hakuryuu considered it was good luck that he had two friends so readily willing to follow him on a ridiculous quest on such short notice. “Thanks. That would be awesome,” he managed an earnest smile, “you guys won’t regret this. We’re all due for a vacation, right?”

“A holiday from responsibility,” Sphintus agreed, “from everything.”

“Let’s all make a promise, then. That we’ll find him,” said Titus, a serious look in his eyes. “That will be our only real goal. But also to have fun. Let’s make this count.”

Sphintus placed his hand flat on the table, narrowly avoiding a sticky patch of spilled coffee. “I’m with you there. Uh, I know this is cheesy, but it’ll make it more than symbolic.”

This felt like the right thing to do. The unknown really was out there, and it was waiting for them. That entity, the Revenant, was hiding another world in the red glow of his eyes, and Hakuryuu could not let that place forget about him. There was a threshold out there that needed to be crossed. He placed his hand over Sphintus’, and Titus, setting down his roll on a napkin, joined them. “Now it’s official,” Hakuryuu pronounced, a small bubble of excitement forming under his ribs.

***  
H.Ren: Hello again, I have another question actually.

H.Ren: Also, I see you updated the page today. That was fast.

40Thieves: Yep! I didn’t have much else to do, my parents are out at some meeting with TV execs to renew their show.

40Thieves: What’ve you got for me?

H.Ren: If I wanted to find a cryptid myself, how would I go about that? What supplies would I need, etc. If you don’t have much for me, I understand.

40Thieves: Dude, are you serious?

H.Ren: Serious as I can be. Why, do you think it’s too hard?

40Thieves: Well, no, but like, sometimes this stuff gets sorta dangerous. If I start giving you advice, it’ll kinda be my fault if you end up getting hurt.

H.Ren: What if I told you I’d go looking whether you helped me out or not?

40Thieves: You’re that determined? Guess I don’t blame you. The supernatural is… addictive in a way.

40Thieves: Okay, this is pretty basic, but here’s a list. Physical maps of wherever you’re going, flashlights and batteries, a camera, a tape recorder. Bring clothes you’re not afraid to totally fuck up.

40Thieves: Also because my dad says this all the time on his show, try not to go on other people’s property. They could call the cops on you, or if they’re belligerent enough, try to deal with you themselves.

40Thieves: I feel obligated to tell you, but things can get weird out there. If you start looking in the wrong place it’s like the world opens up a secret mouth and swallows you. You might think I’m being overdramatic, but you gotta believe me when I say be prepared to feel unprepared.

H.Ren: I think I understand. I’ll be careful. Thank you very much for the help.

H.Ren: If you want, I’ll update you on any progress I make.

40Thieves: Sure, sure, I’m actually curious to see how you do. Do you want to edit the page too? I’d be okay with giving you permission. If you find anything super important you can add it yourself right away.

40Thieves: That is, if you find anything. Is it weird I have this feeling you will?

***

Hakuryuu returned to the dorms at Next House alone, noontime sun dappling the brick walls. Titus split off once they reached campus, claiming there were things he had to retrieve from some of his classes, and Hakuryuu was content to take the rest of the walk by himself.   
Even if Hakuryuu occasionally wasn’t sure what he was doing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he found he appreciated the architecture quite a lot. The towering Grecian style columns flanking the larger buildings gave them an air of decorum. The abstract sculptures dotted about campus felt not out of place, rather, strangely charming. As he walked down Memorial Drive, beneath evenly spaced trees, alongside a queue of austere stone buildings, Hakuryuu allowed himself to slow down and take it all in for the thousandth time.

There were days when Hakuryuu wanted to shut up in a cocoon, wanted nobody to look at him. This was, he acknowledged, gratefully, not one of those days.

Hakuryuu’s largest duffel bag was still in the closet, balled up clumsily and almost completely hidden by a plastic sock organizer. How long would they be gone? Hakuryuu wondered, considering the wall of clothing, most of it Titus’, dangling from identical dollar store hangers. He might as well just pack all of his summer things. No use bringing anything heavy when the weather was only getting warmer.

He attacked the bathroom next, shoving toothbrush, paste and mouthwash into a freezer bag alongside a razor, shaving cream, and a fistful of travel size soaps. Of course, he couldn’t forget about deodorant either… second puberty, as he affectionately called it, could be a real bitch.

Speaking of second puberty. In one of Titus’ empty makeup bags, Hakuryuu gently placed three little glass bottles, their aluminum lids glinting faintly up at him. Beside them, he wedged the case full of cotton balls, adding plastic-wrapped syringes before zipping it closed.

The trials he’d gone through to get his hands on those…

What else? He thought back to his chat log from that morning. Flashlights, batteries, a camera. He currently possessed none of those things, but they could be purchased in time.

Money, duh. He would need some cash. From the end table, he retrieved his very last paycheck from Hallmark, folding the envelope up and sticking it in the frontmost pocket of his backpack. Rest in peace, steady income.

He looked about, trying to catch sight of anything else he might have missed when he suddenly recalled the twenty-gallon terrarium full of carnivorous plants in the windowsill. He’d have to ask Sphintus about that… there was probably room in his car. Whoever was sitting in the backseat could keep an eye on it. He certainly couldn’t leave it alone indefinitely, that was for certain. 

Satisfied for the moment with his progress, Hakuryuu focused on a few simple chores. Sure, there were times when he’d fallen so deep into a slump that he couldn’t even make his bed, but when he had the energy, he found it drove him just a little nuts to leave any part of the dorm in disorder. Picking up his shirt from the day before, he delivered it to the hamper, along with all the damp towels. One last laundry run wouldn’t hurt. 

He thought briefly again about the bar-b-que. Not about his mother, not about his step-father, his father’s brother. Not about the siblings who used to be only cousins. But about his sister, Hakuei. He missed her, of course. In fact, she was his favorite family member. That was why he couldn’t tell her he wasn’t coming, not until the day was almost upon them. If anyone, he didn’t want to disappoint the one person who had been there for him growing up. The one person who taught him how to live as an independent person, how to care for himself. 

Would she be surprised to see how he was turning out? Probably not in the least. Yes, Hakuryuu admitted to himself, it was going to be hard not to see her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://east-coast-cryptid.wikia.com/wiki/The_Appalachian_Revenant


	6. Tiny Footsteps

“It’ll probably only be for two weeks, okay?” Sphintus faltered, rubbing his palm on his jeans. “There’s nothing else I need to get done for school, and gas isn’t gonna be an issue…” His mother, sitting on the paisley-patterned sofa, raised a skeptical eyebrow. Swallowing, Sphintus continued on. “I’ve never been on a real road trip before, and you probably won’t need the extra delivery car anyway. So what I’m asking is, can I please have the next few weeks off?”

Sphintus’ father raised not just one, but two eyebrows. “I’m certain there will be vacations enough when you are a surgeon. What’s so important about this?”

“It’s for my friends, they’ve never done anything like this either!” Sphintus hated to use Titus as a bargaining ploy, but he had the feeling it would be alright this time. “Think of Titus, he’s got so many allergies, his mom wouldn’t even let him leave the house or play in the yard when he was a kid. Don’t you think he deserves a chance to break out of his bubble, see what’s out there?”

His mother hummed a small note. “I like Titus. He’s a strange young man, but I like him. He’s very smart.”

“Yeah, and ma, you don’t even need me here for your job!” He gave a pleading smile. “When you go to the office, you can take your own car.”

When Sphintus was younger, his parents ran the restaurant together full-time. However, a few years earlier, his mother decided it would be prudent to get a second job; five children didn’t pay for themselves. Mondays and Wednesdays she made the commute ten blocks east, to an office building where she became Mrs. Carmen, the social worker. 

Sphintus, as a fifteen-year-old, didn’t yet know how grateful he would be for that. But now, at age twenty-one, he felt some guardian angel had influenced the change.

On the sofa, the woman crossed her legs thoughtfully. “You’re right about that. Are you sure you have no school work left at all?”

“I’m positive, we’re done until the next semester starts.” Sphintus could sense the conversation turning. If his mother agreed, his father would probably see reason as well. He straightened his shoulders, trying to look more confident.

After some prolonged eye contact, the woman nodded. “I don’t see why not, in that case. Take good care of the car, you’ll be paying for it if it ends up wrecked.” Sphintus’ father opened his mouth to object, but he was silenced with a small wave of his wife’s hand. “I trust our son. When will you be leaving?”

Sphintus, relieved, nearly let his impeccable posture drop. “Thanks ma. Tomorrow night, I think. Potentially by noon, if we can get ready fast enough.”

She smiled up at him. “Then go on, pack your things.”

Once upstairs, Sphintus tackled the first obstacle: the dozens of reptiles in his room. It was pretty easy to bribe his ten-year-old sister to feed and take care of them in his absence, though his youngest snake, which needed the most attention, would have to tag along. He moved the baby into a smaller, portable tank, sealing a full container of worms to add to his luggage.

 

In a sense, he really couldn’t believe he was doing this. What an asinine idea, he paused to think every few minutes. But was it really? Hakuryuu seemed downright elated about it. Titus might experience more of the world in one sitting than he ever had before. And what was there to say about himself? He needed a break. If he got nothing out of the venture other than the opportunity to do absolutely nothing, it would be worth it.

And what if they ended up achieving their goal? Well, that would certainly be something, Sphintus thought, zipping up his old digital camera, just in case.

***

 

The tunnels underneath campus connected every single building, and Titus loved them. It didn’t matter how spooky they sometimes got, what with flickering fluorescent lights, and all-white walls and floor, not to mention the rattling boilers and pipes. Mostly, though, they were peaceful, the smallest footfall echoing magnificently down the slanting passageway.

Just last semester, Titus had enrolled in his first art elective, which was housed in the underground. Glass-blowing seemed out of the box, a new and interesting craft, and the first time he peered into one of the smelting rooms, Titus wanted to give it a try. It was definitely harder than it looked, and the heat was hellish, but he didn’t regret it one bit. 

Shaping the glass was almost magical. To take the most extreme, volatile substance he’d ever been up-close to, and make it into a decoration; that was magical. Transforming a white-hot molten blob into something beautiful, with his own two hands. 

Though, he wasn’t returning to the classroom for anything he made himself. On his last day of classes, he’d accidentally abandoned his fencing bag in the classroom. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but it felt so wrong to leave it behind, no matter how much room the equipment might take up in the car.

Fencing was another new thing for Titus. Before starting college, he’d never played any sport, but as his friends later convinced him, it was never too late to try it out. Fencing wasn’t as physically demanding as say, football, and didn’t require him to have significant muscle mass either. He needed quick feet and good reflexes, as well as a little intuition. Likewise, it wasn’t a terrible issue getting him onto the men’s team. Not to say that he was even good at the sport, but he did enjoy it… enough, he thought amusedly, to waste half an hour of his life retrieving a totally useless bag of chest guards and knee socks and spare foils.

Was it really a waste of time, though? Titus closed his eyes, starting down another long sloping incline. Nearby, a humming sound filtered beneath a doorway, reverberating around him… the background static of technological catacombs, Titus considered. Was that melodramatic?

His eyes still lightly closed, he placed a hand on the metal railing, letting other senses guide him. With each step, Titus carried himself deeper into the earth, carried his beating heart below sea level. 

Tap. Tap.

He stiffened, his hand clenching on the rail. For a moment, clear as day, distinct and sharp, he heard feet slap the painted concrete just behind him. He wasn’t being followed, was he? He waited, listening, discerning nothing before urging himself onwards. 

Tap.

Titus, now alarmed, spun about, opening his eyes to find… nothing. An empty hall, a buzzing strip of light bulbs. But that shouldn’t be true. He heard footsteps for sure, probably not more than ten feet behind him, and there was no mistaking that. 

Yet it remained that he was alone. Clearing his throat, ignoring his heartbeat rising in his ears, Titus spoke to the empty space. “Hello? Is there anybody…” He trailed off, feeling foolish. Way to announce his presence. He tried to keep still as he peered back up the hallway, only his breath stirring any movement. 

Nothing else moved. Titus scrutinized the ceiling, the walls, the floor, and finally- a bright spot of color stood out on the concrete, a red dot in a white nothingness. It appeared to be a ribbon, a child’s hair tie. 

Titus walked back up the incline, picking the tattered ribbon off the dusty concrete, knotting it around his wrist. He had no reason at all for it, but it felt right. The cool thread of the ribbon a conscious presence against his wrist, Titus turned back to his path, keeping his eyes open.


	7. High Above Boston

As twilight neared, purple light creeping across the harbor, a sigil flared to life over Kenmore Square. The red triangle burned in the air, haunting the cars that ran beneath it in a steady stream. There was a single word spelled out beneath it, the voice to an incantation. CITGO, it read. No, commanded. 

Higher still, past the metal scaffolding holding the CITGO sign aloft, a pair of feet swung over the side of it, swaying back and forth in the breeze. A pair of eyes, red as the LED lights of the triangle, roved over the cityscape suspended below. 

He took all of it in. Yellow windows, dusky clouds, the dark green of the Charles River and the flashing white starlight of the bridges spanning it.

When he could think clearly, there were days he truly appreciated being alive. No, not just alive. Alive and powerful. Powerful enough to sit atop a stories-high sign, atop a stories-high building, and look over the world with nothing to fear. Did he miss the feeling of fear? Someone else might have answered yes, but as long as he searched, there was no longing in his heart for those old sensations. 

If it could be said that his heart was still his own, and no one else’s. Nothing else’s. He leaned back, his hair dangling over the abyss, his eyes turned towards the sky, and tried to remember what being human felt like. 

Without really understanding the joke he continued to play on himself, Judal broke his staring contest with the darkening heavens and began to laugh.


	8. In Memory of Those Innocents

Hakuryuu shuffled towards the curb, precariously balancing his terrarium against his hip, supporting its girth with his right hand. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was cruelly sweltering, bringing pricks of sweat to the surface of his skin. Beside him, Titus plopped the last bag, Hakuryuu’s backpack, onto the sidewalk. “Think we got everything we need?” His friend asked, taking off his loose white hoodie and tying it around his waist.

“Yeah, we sure do.” He muttered with a grunt, trying to hitch the terrarium further up on his side. Earlier, he’d picked up a few cheap road maps, a flashlight and a sleeve of D batteries, which were probably already free from their packaging and careening around the bottom of his backpack, now that he thought about it. Searching for a distraction from his straining fingers, Hakuryuu looked over the bags assembled at the curb. “Wait, why are you bringing your fencing stuff?”

Titus inched in front of the bag, protectively. “It’s my largest carry-on, and I wanted to bring my favorite sabre! You’re not expecting me to leave that behind, right? I’m attached!”

“Relax,” he rolled his eyes, “I was just curious. I’m not gonna make you go put it back. It might even come in handy, you never know.” Last night, Hakuryuu noticed a scrap of red ribbon tied around Titus’ wrist. It was still there that afternoon, giving off a dim shine in the sun. What was it? Hakuryuu wondered, and where had he gotten it from? It looked something like a little kid’s hair tie. Maybe Titus found it while he was packing up, and decided to hold onto it for one reason or another. 

Just when Hakuryuu didn’t think the muscles in his hand would hold out any longer, an olive green sedan pasted with decals cruised up alongside the curb, the driver’s side window rolling down to reveal Sphintus’ irked expression. “Hakuryuu, buddy, what the fuck is that?”

“It has to come with us,” Hakuryuu said, matter-of-factly, already opening the rear door and easing the terrarium onto the seats, “they’ll die without someone to look after them. They’re not exactly beginner level plants, it isn’t like I could find someone to take care of them properly on such short notice.”

“Can’t argue with that. But can you put a seatbelt on it?” Sphintus craned his neck back to peer at it. “Just gotta make sure it won’t fall on the floor and make a giant mess.”

Hakuryuu followed the terrarium into the backseat, which, in the heat, smelled thickly of olive oil and reminded him of a lunchbox left too long in the sun without an ice pack. Fumbling with the seatbelt, he managed to cradle the whole tank with the strap, clicking it securely into place like a child in a booster seat. 

“I call shotgun!” Titus piped, moments before shoving Hakuryuu’s backpack and duffel bag into the rear of the car, effectively barricading him in. Hakuryuu supposed that was just what he got for letting his guard down. Shotgun was a first-come first-serve situation. 

Sphintus laughed. “Aw, you’re stuck back there! Watch your feet, I keep all my tapes down on the floor.”

“It always surprises me that you have a car with a real, working tape deck. Usually, only old men have cars like this,” Hakuryuu teased, making a show out of nearly stepping on a Skechers shoe box full of cassettes.

“I choose to take that as a compliment,” Sphintus huffed, “even though I know it’s not.”

Titus opened the passenger’s side door, dropping down into his seat. “Everything’s in! Thanks for not helping, Hakuryuu!” He grinned. “I kid. So… um… where are we going?”

Luckily, Hakuryuu had already given that issue some thought. “I checked out the road maps I bought this morning, and I have a few ideas. First of all, I don’t think any of this should be about getting from point A to point B. There are any number of places our friend the Revenant could be hiding. Taking this slow, checking all of the places he could be lurking is our best bet for actually finding him. We should check the kinds of places he was spotted in before; the edges of parking lots, weird supermarket chains, empty, out of the way areas.

“As for where we should start, here,” he reached for one of the maps, folding part of it up between the driver’s and passenger's seats, “there’s a place about thirty minutes from here with a lot of history, and a lot of museums, which is where we came across him. Maybe we’ll hit the jackpot.” He pointed to a highlighted area on the coast.

“Oh hey, that’s Salem!” Titus’ eyes brightened with recognition. “I’ve never been there, obviously, but I know all the history surrounding it. I second that, we should go there first.”

Sphintus nodded, taking the car out of park. “Salem it is then. What museums are there?”

“Hold on.” Hakuryuu reached for his phone. “I forget some of them, but there’s definitely a memorial park for the people who died during the trials. I thought we might visit that first. There’s also the Salem Witchcraft Museum, and the Peabody Essex Museum, which I’m pretty sure is an art museum. Ugh, never mind, it says you have to pay to get in…”

“Let’s stick to the witchy stuff!” Titus settled back in his seat. “If we’re trying to catch something supernatural in the act, it makes more sense to check places with that kind of historical connotation first.”

“Not to be annoying, but can we swing by a drive-through first?” Sphintus asked. “I have this feeling neither of you ate yet, and if no one tells you to, you’ll get so wrapped up in your own heads you just won’t.”

Titus went a little red. “That’s… accurate.” He mumbled.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m the mom friend, which… like, look at me, do I seem that responsible?”

“I want Burger King, ma,” Hakuryuu deadpanned, “and then you need to drop us off for the soccer tournament. Don’t forget about your Tupperware party tonight.”

Sphintus shuddered. “Ew, stop, I never wanted this life.”

The Boston streets were always a tangle, aimless alleyways twisting and snaking through each other in complex knots. North Cambridge, though it was marooned on the other side of the Charles River, wasn’t much better, and it took some maneuvering before Sphintus could inch his way out of the snare of traffic and into a Burger King drive-through. Hakuryuu leaned around the driver’s seat, straining to see the menu. “I’ll be set with a water and a chicken burger.”

“I’m not allergic to onion rings… I don’t think! We’ll find out!” Titus handed over his debit card. “Starting now, I’ll pay for everything.”

Sphintus had just finished ordering when Titus gasped. “Shit, wait, can you ask for crowns?”

“Yeah, I want a crown too!” Hakuryuu chimed in from the back. 

“Ugh, fine, I’ll ask at the window,” Sphintus snorted, pulling forward a little more, “I kinda want one too. I guess we’re all still six years old at heart.”

Five minutes later, Titus folded together the last crown, grinning as he placed it on his own head. “I know you were joking, but I think the people at the window assumed you were ordering for kids. But nope! Just us! Responsible adults in cardboard hats!”

“We are responsible adults!” Sphintus said, around a bite of his chicken wrap. “You think they let just anybody be Burger Royalty?”

Hakuryuu set his crown at a jaunty angle, and as the car picked up speed, the road and the city slipping away in greater and greater degrees, the usual sour feeling in his gut hid its head in the sand.

***

Salem, like Boston, was full of thin streets, wrapped around each other in hilly grids. Big, blocky colonial houses lined them on both sides, interspersed by sleek, newer buildings. Dozens of square windows stared down judgmentally, sunlight glinting off their thick glass panes. Titus, his shoes off, wiggled his bare toes on the dashboard as he read off directions from his phone. Hakuryuu on the other hand, basking in the back seat, had come perilously close to falling asleep and jerked up with a gasp when the sedan stopped short for a traffic light.

“Where are we?” He blurted, pushing the Burger King crown out of his face.

Titus answered, wiggling his feet in greeting before opening his mouth. “Almost there! We’re like one block away from the memorial park and the graveyard, and after that, the museum isn’t far off.”

“Forget where we are,” Sphintus grumbled, “where do I park?” He turned another sharp corner, passing a tall, austere church tower. “Do you think I’m allowed to parallel park on this street? Where are the parking meters?”

“Just stop anywhere, I’m sure it’ll be fine!” Titus insisted, finally removing his heels from the dashboard.

Once they had parked, in a small lot behind a cluster of storefronts, it was a challenge for Hakuryuu to escape the backseat. Not wanting to bother with the luggage blocking his way, he squirmed between the front seats, following titus out through his door. The heat hadn’t diminished since they’re embarked on the road, and Hakuryuu instantly regretted not bringing any water bottles.

Sphintus poked at his crown. “We’re not wearing these in public, right?”

“You,” muttered Titus, tossing his crown back into the car, “are absolutely zero fun.” He was, Hakuryuu noticed gratefully, wearing shoes again.

Removing his crown as well, Hakuryuu started across the lot. “I’m pretty sure that’s it over there, across the street. Can you guys see that arch?” Visible over a low fence was a rough-hewn stone arch, the canopies of four or five trees springing up behind it. 

Titus was already crossing the street by the time Hakuryuu finished speaking, which was typical behavior from him. Aside from a few pedestrians, the site appeared mostly empty. That was good, Hakuryuu thought, maybe a little too hopefully. If luck was on their side, he might cross paths with the entity again straight away.

Once Hakuryuu reached the archway, a view of dark green grass and cobblestones visible through the opening, both his friends were already transfixed by words carved into the stone above them and the walls stretching out to either side. 

“Ryuu, check it out, these are real quotes from the witches! I mean, the accused witches.” Titus peered up, leaning partway under the arch to follow a phrase that wrapped around the corner. 

Hakuryuu, admittedly, knew not very much about Salem or the witch trials, beyond what they covered in the colonial period of his high school American History class; he’d chosen the destination more on its legacy than an actual affinity for its past. However, reading the carved words, he began to feel something of a connection, beyond whatever facts he retained from 11th grade.

“‘Innocent.’ I keep seeing that word.” He said, feeling the silence had overstayed its welcome. 

“That’s all they wanted, y’know? For people to know that, even in the face of all this hysteria. A lot of time during the European heretic hunts, the person singled out as a devil-worshipper was a woman, or a spinster, or someone who liked to be alone, or just didn’t go to church. Being sentenced, on the basis of stereotypes, and in this case, the pointed fingers of some children, I’m sure the last thing the people who died wanted was to prove somehow that they weren’t evil.” Titus recited, almost as though he were preparing to write an essay on it that very moment.

Sphintus stepped under the arch and into the small park. “I had no idea you knew so much about all this, Titus. No, wait, I take that back.” He grinned. “I feel like you know everything about everything, like you’re goddamn omniscient.”

His face pink, Titus stuck out his chin. “That’s not true! I don’t know everything yet! That’s libel!”

Sometimes, Hakuryuu just wished his friends would decide whether they actually wanted to flirt or not.

“Anyway!” Titus quickly interjected, “all the benches in here have the name of an accused person on them! And over there is the graveyard!” He pointed over a stone wall, which was lined with the aforementioned benches, into a cemetery full of chipping, slanted headstones like baby teeth the earth could not push loose. 

Starting with the closest bench, Hakuryuu walked along the wall, reading each name. Some had flowers beside them, other candles and letters, and it occurred to him that the owners of those names could have living descendants. Why wouldn’t they? They were more than names, but real people who had lived and died at the hands of a society poised against them.

“Most of these say they died by hanging,” Sphintus paused to read another. “And here I was thinking they burnt witches at the stake or something like that.”

A strong breeze rushed through the nearby trees, the rustle of their leaves forcing Titus to hold his rebuttal. “Actually, that was only in Europe, in France and Germany during the big medieval witch hunts. There was never a burning in American, probably because the English colonists had never done it back in England.”

“Makes sense. If they didn’t do it in the old country, why start in the new?” Sphintus nodded.

“Plus, being burned alive is regarded as one of the cruelest ways to execute a person, and it was seen that way even back then. It was used when they wanted to make the person really suffer. In comparison, hanging was faster and less painful. It can take up to ten minutes for a person being burned alive to die-” Titus clamped his mouth shut, looking to Hakuryuu with anxiety on his face. “Shit, I am so sorry, I hope I didn’t bother you…”

Hakuryuu released a heavy breath, the back of his neck tingling with nerves. “No, no, it’s okay. I agree. As someone who almost died that way, I have to say it totally sucks.” He forced himself to smile, shrugging. “I’m only traumatized for the rest of my life, it could be worse.” 

“Yeah, you could like… not have a life.” Sphintus placed a hand on his shoulder, and the touch was grounding. “This is gonna sound sappy as hell, but I’m really glad you’re alive and here with us.”

“Me too!” Titus sputtered. “Again, I’m really sorry for going into detail like that, I’ll be more careful.”

“I promise it’s not a big deal.” Giving his friend another smile, more genuine than the last, Hakuryuu felt his skin stop prickling. “If I’m being honest, it feels kinda good to joke about it every once in awhile. It’s not like at home, where everyone is hell bent on forgetting it ever happened.”

Titus sniffed, his eyes a little damp. “I’m gonna hug you now. Cause you need one, I think. Is that okay?”

Titus was a hugger at heart; if he suspected someone needed comforting, his first instinct was it hug it out. In Hakuryuu’s case, it worked wonders. Maybe it was that Titus was just a good hugger. Maybe, Hakuryuu considered, it could possibly have just a little to do with the overwhelming absence of platonic and familial affection his teen years had held. Either-or. It was a toss-up. Extending his arms, Hakuryuu snorted softly. “What do you think?”

With a watery smile, Titus embraced him. “C’mon Sphin, get in on this! It’s a group hug now!”

Sighing, Sphintus gave in and wrapped his arms around them both. “Y’know, this is gonna look really weird. Just some dudes hugging by a graveyard. Nothing to see here.”

Titus laughing, shoving him lightly. “Hey, don’t you ruin the moment! I’ll kick you out of the support-hug!”

“Nope, no one leaves the hug,” Hakuryuu snickered softly, “It’s in the rulebook. Of being friends. If you leave, we have to put your membership card through a shredder.”

“Would I be allowed to reapply?” Sphintus gasped, feigning a heart-broken expression.

“I’ll think about it, but don’t push your luck!”


	9. Not Too Close, Not Too Far

Sitting on the side of the highway, beside a car dealership and a Bank of America ATM, the abandoned gas station allowed another day’s worth of hot sunlight to fade the paint on its already illegible storefront. Behind it, the roar of cars faded to dim thunder. The weeds that rose from the cracking asphalt deepened, springing up from marshy peat in the shadows streaking around tree trunks. 

Footprints wound around in the fen, a heel near a skunk cabbage, a toe beneath a curling fern. Their owner stepped carelessly yet gracefully, avoiding pools of fetid, still water perhaps by a hair’s width. A mourning dove cooed, the lonely sound echoing, and Judal stopped to listen, his feet sinking in the mud.

Of course, he was interrupted.

 _You know, someone has taken notice of us. A human._ Came a voice in the front of his skull, low and sonorous.

“Really?” Judal laughed. “Oh, wow. I’m surprised! But only that it took so long! Do I have a fan? Are they hunting me for sport like a prize buck? I’m not interested in being taxidermied, you feel me?”

 _Not so. It is a young man, roughly your age. He seeks you, like explorers of old sought El Dorado, like the mortal seeks myth. I believe this will be familiar._ An image flashed across Judal’s mind; a pair of blue eyes, one filmy, the other clear and dark, both intense and fixed. 

He drew a deep breath. “Him. I remember him. What do I do? Should I stop him?” What he did not ask aloud, what he knew could be heard anyway, was this- what if he wanted to be searched for? Typically, when he came face-to-face with someone who could see him for what he was, Judal did whatever he could to toy with them. Boredom was, after all, the enemy, and he fought it at every turn. But that encounter at the museum had been different. He didn’t mean to look into those eyes so deeply as to get an understanding in return. 

_What you do is your choice. But his intentions are unsullied by greed and ambition. He wants you before him, our world around him. Would you be willing to let him step within?_

Judal considered that for a very long time before making a choice. 

“I don’t know.” He shook his head slowly, laughing. “But I do know that I fucking love attention.”

He wanted to be found. But was that possible? He decided to find out for himself.


	10. No One's Gonna Believe You

His legs already strained from a long day of walking, Hakuryuu had officially drawn the shortest straw in the Walgreen’s parking lot; not only did he have to go inside and buy them all instant dinners for the hotel room, he’d been dared to do it while wearing a witch hat from the museum gift shop. And if there was one thing Hakuryuu wasn’t, it was too afraid to rise to the challenge of a dare. 

Feeling Sphintus and Titus watching him gleefully from the car, Hakuryuu quickly crossed the darkening parking lot, knowing in his heart that he looked like a complete idiot. Acceptance was superior to denial.

He was going to retaliate, of course. Stepping through the automatic doors, he was already envisioning new and infinitely more embarrassing dares to enact on his friends. It was quiet and brightly lit inside the Walgreens, faint music playing over the radio. The air smelled a little like Lysol. 

Re-orienting himself, Hakuryuu checked the notes on his phone. Several years ago he started a record of all the things Titus was allergic to. He would need it for reference if he was going to pick Titus a dinner that wouldn’t put him in the emergency room. Blessedly, as Hakuryuu walked down the aisles, there weren’t many other shoppers. The only employee he passed was too busy reorganizing a shelf of cereal to bother with a weird kid in a silly hat.

The store was more spacious than Hakuryuu assumed it would be from the outside, and after a few minutes of wandering around looking for instant ramen, it dawned on him that he was lost. Lost, in a smaller, shittier CVS! It would chafe him significantly to have to go ask an employee where the soup was, but at this point, he had limited options. Turning around, he tried to reroute to the cereal aisle… only to discover he had somehow misplaced that as well.

Cursing, he whipped around again, the hat almost tumbling off his head. Was this a joke? Was he developing senile dementia? The surrounding two-liter soda bottles and tins of concentrated juice mocked him quietly. 

He’d had a long day, and he was just tired. Panicking like a preschooler who lost his parents in the mall wasn’t helping. Taking deep breaths, he backed out of the shelves, stepping backwards into a wider intersection. 

The world swooned, for only a moment, the lights flickering and their reflections on the white tile floor jumping wildly. But as soon as it happened, it stopped, leaving Hakuryuu bewildered, standing in the middle of the soup aisle. 

***

“What’s taking him so long?” Sphintus grumbled. “You don’t think anyone got in his face about the dumb hat, do you?”

Titus giggled. The dare had been mostly his idea, and it seemed like some good, harmless fun. Besides, he knew Hakuryuu would get back at them sooner or later. “Pfft, no way. If anything he’s having a hard time finding a meal I can actually eat.”

“Oh, right. Does he still have that list? Of all the stuff you can’t eat?”

He had a list? “I.. I didn’t even know he had something like that. That’s kinda sweet.” Titus blinked, surprised. “He seriously does that?”

“Yeah, when we were getting snacks for your birthday he had it out in the store. If I could guess, I’d say he’s had it for a while, because it’s comprehensive.” On the floor, between Sphintus’ feet, something hissed softly. Not looking startled in the least, he pulled up a small plastic tank from under the seat, flicking on the portable heat lamp in the lid. “I gotta set an alarm for a few hours now, it’s important this little guy gets his light.”

Titus gaped at the tiny snake curled up inside, half under a fake plant. “I cannot believe you got pissed at Ryuu for bringing plants! You brought a snake!”

“It’s not just a snake, his name is Spinach and I love him and he had to come!”

“You named your snake Spinach?” Titus burst into laughter, forgetting his incredulity. 

“It’s an amazing name! Should I have named him something melodramatic and un-cute?” Sphintus stuck his hand down, almost tenderly lifting the serpent. “He’s green and definitely cute. Spinach fits.”

Every once in awhile, Sphintus would do something that made Titus fill with what he only recently recognized as affection. Or, as he begrudgingly admitted, the symptoms of a crush. Holding a snake as gently as one would a kitten, in his bare hand no less, was one of those things. But, Titus rationalized each and every time, it was better to just ignore it. He’d never had a crush before or thought about it much, so the chances of him messing up were astronomical if he let himself act on it. Besides, Sphintus was his friend. Not to mention, if he went and did something weird, he had a sinking feeling all their relationships would change, and alienating Hakuryuu wasn’t a risk he felt like taking. 

But Sphintus was so cute, goddammit. Titus made a truce with his conscience, allowing himself to enjoy the scene for thirty more seconds before dragging his gaze away. 

Just as his thirty seconds ran out, Hakuryuu crammed himself into the backseat, wriggling over the mountain of luggage. He looked oddly winded. Titus frowned, twisting around to look at him. “Ryuu, is there a problem?”

“No. Yeah. I don’t know.” Hakuryuu set down the bag of snacks, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Something really weird happened to me in there.”

Sphintus closed the tank back up quickly, wedging it back under the seat but leaving the heat lamp on. “Weird how? Like, did it have something to do with your Revenant?”

“He-he’s not anyone’s Revenant, let alone mine.” Hakuryuu frowned deeply. “And no, he wasn’t there. I think I might have imagined it. Like a stress-mirage. Are those a thing?”

“Don’t think so. Will you just tell us what happened?” Titus sighed, curiosity melting away his patience. “I wanna know!”

Hakuryuu played with the shopping bag handles as he thought through his words, twisting the plastic tight as a tourniquet. “The store looked so normal at first, but as I started walking around I had this feeling like it was getting bigger and bigger. I even got lost in there… not sure for how long. One minute it was normal, and the next it felt like the aisles were going on forever. Or like I wasn’t even in the same place.”

Sphintus let out a heavy sigh. “Hm. Not to sound like a normie, but sometimes it’s just like that. I can’t think of a more detailed explanation, but I have a feeling it’s got mostly to do with exhaustion.”

Titus was torn. On one hand, Hakuryuu looked genuinely distressed. On the other, Sphintus was probably correct, and try as he might, he couldn’t think of another clear explanation. Well, there was the Revenant, only Hakuryuu claimed not to have seen him. What then? “I say we just go to our hotel room for the night and relax and think about it tomorrow!” Titus suggested, trying to look cheery about it.

“Eh, easy for you to say,” Hakuryuu cracked a small smile, “also, that’s not the real Titus attitude. The Titus I know never leaves anything for the next day. He stays up and does homework until 3 am and wakes his roommate up every five minutes pacing around.”

Shuddering, Sphintus shot Titus a look. “Dude, you are the worst. Worst roommate ever.”

Titus flushed, doing his best not to feel wretched. He was a terrible roommate, really… “S-seriously though, let’s just go chill! And I’m hungry!”

Hakuryuu seemed to unwind a little, taking off the witch hat and leaning back against the seat. “Okay, okay… with a little time and food, I’ll be able to think more rationally about what happened. Let’s go.”

By some awful coincidence, the glow of the setting sun lit up Sphintus’ profile just right as they drove away. Titus gave himself another thirty seconds on the clock and tried to make them last.

***

After a nice bowl of instant noodles and a long, hot shower, Hakuryuu determined that yes, his adventure in the Walgreens was nothing more than a product of his overstressed imagination. Their room in the Salem Courtyard Marriot was clean and rather two-dimensional, populated by two beds, a fold-out couch and perhaps too many paintings of sailboats. 

By the time he got out, dressed in pajama pants and an illegible graphic t-shirt he’d accidentally got bleach on, Sphintus had entered into a noisy food coma on the couch. He was wrapped around a pillow, snoring almost frighteningly loud. Titus, meanwhile, laid on his belly on the nearest bed, flicking through TV channels.

Sidestepping the mini fridge, Hakuryuu sat cross legged on on the bed next to him. “Whatcha watchin’?”

Titus flipped through the next few channels. “Before, I was watching that Hoarders show, but after a while, it starts getting wicked depressing, and then I trick myself into wanting to clean everything I see. So. I had to stop watching.” He said, offering the remote. “Do you wanna pick something?”

Shrugging, Hakuryuu took the remote. “Eh, I’ll look around. I’m pretty beat though, I’m gonna wipe out basically any minute now, I can just tell.” He clicked through some antique shows, a bland soap opera, and a shampoo commercial before stopping on the Discovery Channel. “What about this?” He tossed the remote onto the mattress. “I like nature documentaries. Maybe there will be a good one on, like Planet Earth.”

Titus rested his chin on his folded arms. “Yeah, I like those too… I’ve never been to a zoo, so it’s neat to see more exotic animals in action.”

“We could work a zoo into this trip, if you want,” Hakuryuu offered, “we probably wouldn’t find any cryptids in there, but just for fun.”

“Really?” Titus beamed, but suddenly Hakuryuu was too distracted by the television to answer. The commercial break had ended, switching over to a shot of two men in a thickly wooded bog. A narrator’s voice gave a hasty recap, something about tracks being located near the edge of a highway and the two men on screen picking up the trail. 

Hakuryuu belatedly nodded. “Oh yeah, totally. This looks kinda interesting, what do you think it’s about?” The men, for some reason, resonated with faint familiarity in the back of his mind. One of them was tall and broad-shouldered, with silky-looking hair in a ponytail. The other was short, with well-defined biceps and hair nearly as heavily bleached as Sphintus’. Hakuryuu couldn’t remember seeing anyone with their descriptions, but still…

Titus yawned, closing his eyes. “Not sure. Anyway. G’night Hakuryuu…” And with that, he was fast asleep. Hakuryuu folded the blankets around him like a taco, moving to the other bed and tucking himself in. On TV, the taller man was explaining how to make plaster casts of a footprint in the mud. The footprint he worked on, Hakuryuu noticed, was cloven, the goat-like impression wide and splayed. 

He wondered about the show for a few minutes more before drowsiness overtook him. His eyes slowly fell shut, his mind drifting off into sleep.

Maybe hours passed. Maybe only moments. When Hakuryuu opened his eyes, the hotel room was indescribably different than the one he’d gone to sleep in, though he knew he was in the same place. He had a feeling like he had just gotten dressed, only to realize all his clothes were much too small. Groggily, still half-asleep, he took in the darkness, the odd ticking noises that seemed to emanate from the walls, the buzzing static on the TV. On the other side of the room, there was a light rattling sound, glass nudging glass.

Unsure if he was dreaming or waking, Hakuryuu held his breath, sitting up slowly in bed. The mini fridge was open, the tiny orange light bulb illuminating a crouching figure rummaging in it, piling their arms with snacks. 

Their head turned, like an owl’s, swiveling around to face Hakuryuu. This had to be a dream because there he was; the Revenant, sitting right there on the carpet, grinning from ear to ear. Hakuryuu froze, unable to speak, and the Revenant spoke for him.

“The name’s Judal, by the way,” his eyes glinted crimson in the dark, reflective like a cat’s, “and I would go back to sleep if I were you. No one’s gonna believe you.”

And then it was morning, Hakuryuu’s eyes snapping open, his heart pounding. He didn’t remember going back to sleep, but he had a sudden feeling there was no way in hell that had been a dream.


	11. Horizon Line

Sphintus woke to the sound of Hakuryuu babbling like a maniac.

“He was right where I’m standing, and he looked at me! And he stole everything out of the mini fridge and- the mini fridge!” There was a gasp, then a clunking sound as Hakuryuu presumably threw open the door of the fridge. “Hah! Hah, look Titus, there’s nothing there! He said you guys wouldn’t believe me, but you will!”

Rubbing his eyes, Sphintus propped himself up. “What’s happening? Why are you yelling?”

Titus, sitting on the edge of his bed, his blanket wrapped around him like a long cloak, gave Sphintus a little smile. “Good morning to you too. Hakuryuu thinks he saw the Revenant last night. While we were asleep.”

“I do not think I saw him, I know I did! And he has a name, and it’s Judal, he told me himself! He talked to me!” Hakuryuu insisted, looking both exasperated and frenzied. His eyes were wide, searching the room even as he talked. Sphintus sighed. This did not look good.

“Don’t you think maybe you’re just too focused on this and thinking about it a little too much?” Sphintus got up, walking over to jiggle the doorknob, examining the lock. “The door is locked, the deadbolt is on, and the key card,” he pulled the plastic rectangle out of his pocket, “is right here. I don’t wanna go bursting your bubble too harshly, but don’t we need more than that? We’re looking for concrete proof, not a weird dream you had.”

Hakuryuu’s face fell instantly. “It was not a dream. He was seriously in here and… and…”

Feeling guilty, Sphintus tried to look sympathetic. “Maybe. Maybe he was. Next time, get a picture, alright?”

Brightening, Hakuryuu nodded. “Right. I should’ve tried last night, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Next time I’ll get him for sure.”

“For now, can we just decide what to do today?” Titus yawned, stretching out his legs almost like a cat. “If you really saw him, he might be close still. Oh, and we need to eat probably, so breakfast should be on our agenda.”

Sphintus was instantly grateful to Titus for his consistent ability to adeptly change subjects. “Breakfast, yeah! I don’t really want hotel breakfast. We should go out someplace.”

“Ihop? Friendly’s?” Hakuryuu suggested, already grabbing new clothes.

“I’ll look up a Friendly’s, I really like their omelettes,” Titus fumbled around in the covers for his phone, settling back into his blanket cape while he searched for the restaurant in question.

Sphintus, meanwhile, retrieved Spinach from the small desk near the windows. If Hakuryuu noticed the snake at any point, he didn’t seem to care. Watching Spinach bask in the heat lamp, occasionally flicking out his tongue, Sphintus thought through when it would be best to feed him next. He ate two days ago, and usually liked to have his meals at night. Someday, the little snake would be tough enough to take on live meals, like mice, but as of the present the only things he could safely eat were worms.

“Okay, found one!” Titus held up his phone. “Hakuryuu’s in the bathroom, but if you wanna hurry I’ll just turn around so you can get changed.”

They were quickly entering territory Sphintus wasn’t sure he wanted to explore. Maybe it was that he’d be too comfortable changing with him right there. Maybe it was that, by being so familiar with him, he’d accidentally overstep some unspoken boundary. Shit, he didn’t know. “Nah, it’s cool, I can wait.”

“Man, Sphin, you missed like a solid five minutes of Hakuryuu ranting before. He was going on and on, I couldn't even understand. Do you think he’s obsessed? Or just excited? He reminds me of an old explorer, all possessed by the spirit of the unknown or whatever.” Titus slid off the bed, closing the mini fridge.

“Should we do anything about it? Say anything? We were the ones who agreed to go cryptid hunting after all…”

Titus shrugged. “If you can’t beat em, join em! You just gotta get into the spirit of things!”

It would sure be nice to be able to, but the wad of staunch skepticism in the back of Sphintus’ mind stopped him every time. “Look, if I had more evidence, I would love to. Maybe if I see some actually weird thing with my own eyes. If I don’t have some reserve, you and Hakuryuu will be without your mom friend, and believe me, you two need a mom friend. If this friend group was left without an anchor for a minute, who knows what would happen?”

“We’d probably be fine!” Titus insisted, “me and Ryuu are also vastly different brands of impulsive! If he gets an idea, he just does it, if I get one, I think about it first.”

“But,” Sphintus raised an eyebrow, feeling he was definitely becoming his mother, “you still do it, don’t you?”

He got some reluctant muttering in reply, which probably meant yes.

A few moments passed before Titus looked back, grinning. “Gee, Ryuu sure is taking a while. Wonder if he got lost in the bathroom. We should’ve given him some bread crumbs so he could find his way back out again.”

Sphintus snorted, holding in laughter. “Shut up, he’ll hear!”

“No he won’t! He’s gone! He shrunk down and got lost in the sink drain!” Titus snickered, laughing to himself for longer than was necessary before his train of thought took a nosedive off the tracks. “Oh, can I ask you something kinda weird?”

Feeling just a tad uneasy, Sphintus nodded. “Hopefully not too weird.”

“Back at school, in the tunnels, has it ever felt like you were being followed? Or like you could hear someone walking right behind you, but there wasn’t anyone? Don’t you say I’m just hopping on the Hakuryuu bandwagon, cause I’m not and yes, this has happened to me.” He sighed.

Sphintus was so disarmed by his last statement that he forced himself to set any skepticism aside. “Do you think someone was following you? It’s never happened to me, no… who would do that? They’d have to be really good at hiding to escape being noticed in such close quarters.”

“Or invisible?” Titus suggested. “Or able to walk through walls?”

“Maybe. Whatever makes sense. When did this happen?”

“The other day, right before we were getting ready to leave. I kept hearing footsteps right behind me, only I couldn’t find any evidence I wasn’t alone… oh, but I did find this!” He displayed his wrist, which had a slightly tattered ribbon tied around it. “It sorta appeared on the ground, so I just took it. It just seems like it’s a normal ribbon though, nothing special or weird.”

“So. You’re saying either a ghost or a ninja followed you around and left you a ribbon as a calling card?”

“It sounds so dumb when you say it like that…”

“No, no, I believe you, I promise!” Sphintus insisted. And the more he thought about it, he found he sort of did. Titus was clever and observant, and what reason did he had to lie? “Maybe the tunnels are haunted, or-”

“Maybe I’m being haunted? I’ve never heard any rumors like that, but if it was following just me and leaving just me presents, do you think it might be after me specifically?” Titus looked bizarrely excited about that prospect. 

“Do you want to be haunted?”

“It’s new and interesting! I’ve never been haunted before! I hope my personal ghost just thinks I’m really cool, and isn’t planning on stealing my soul or anything.” Titus gave a sunny smile, like he hadn’t even been thinking about becoming a soulless husk.

That was what made Titus interesting, Sphintus thought. Titus was never sick of anything. From the most pedestrian aspects over everyday life, to a ghost possibly following him about, Titus had a bottomless affinity for everything he encountered. He saw depth where the world was flat. To Titus, there was no downfall in overlooking facts, only a clear sense of wonder, an insistence that familiar things held more significance than anyone else expected them to. 

***

They barely made it out of the hotel by check-out time, and Hakuryuu was deeply grateful they had, because he couldn’t live with racking up Titus’ debit card bill any more than he had to. It was a quiet morning, the sunlight golden and the air still retaining a slight chill, which helped distract Hakuryuu from the fact that Judal had been totally correct about neither of his friends believing him.

And how ridiculous was that, right? There was so much evidence Judal, if that indeed was his name, had been there in the room. Sure, Hakuryuu was no forensic investigator, but if there had been more time, he was certain h could’ve found fingerprints on the fridge, or a hair on the carpet.

Beyond that… how had Judal sought him out? Was he omniscient in any way? Did he know Hakuryuu was looking for him? That thought made Hakuryuu swell with pride. If he knew Hakuryuu was searching for him, to let himself be seen must mean something significant. Right? Hakuryuu found himself zoning out completely, getting lost in his own thoughts as the car picked up speed. 

He only snapped back into reality once Sphintus turned off the engine in the Friendly’s parking lot. “We’re here! Hakuryuu, you alive back there?”

Hakuryuu jumped an inch off the seat. “Yep, uh, I’m here!” He scrambled to exit the car before anyone could make the mistake of asking him what he’d been thinking about. 

The lot was set in a strange position, almost slotted into the side of a hill. On one side it looked out onto the road, but on the other, a concrete wall rose to above Hakuryuu’s head, bushes and shrubs planted on on the grass just beyond the top of the wall. Their lowest branches stretched just over the edge of the parking lot, casting strange shadows at the base of the wall. It was disconcerting to both be above and below ground, Hakuryuu considered, craning his neck up to spot trees beyond the decorative foliage, and pale blue sky even further up. 

He couldn’t stand and stare for too long, of course. He turned quickly, following his friends inside, before they had yet another chance to ask him about his inner monologue.

Titus shivered dramatically. “Why is it so cold in here?” He mumbled, rubbing his bare arms.

Hakuryuu peeled off his sleeveless hoodie. “You can probably use this like a blanket, if you wrap it around the right way.” He demonstrated, putting it around his own shoulders. 

Accepting it, Titus flashed a grin. “They say chivalry is dead! You’re living proof manners are still alive and well.”

Sphintus scowled. “If I had a sweater I would’ve offered! My manners aren't dead either!”

A feeling of wrongness passed over Hakuryuu and he sighed. “Shit, wait a sec guys, I left my stuff in the car. Will you get a table?” He’d been in such a hurry, he’d forgotten his maps and his phone. 

“Yeah, but hurry or we’ll eat without you!” Titus gave him a nudge back towards the glass door.

Stepping outside, Hakuryuu had the sense something was different. Focusing, he realized it was the hum of a nearby central air conditioning unit, which had likely been turned on full blast the moment they’d gone inside. The sun was just a tiny bit higher, and light washed over the two concrete sides of the lot, converging where they met in a corner directly opposite the spot where Hakuryuu stood.

Now that he had the time, Hakuryuu walked slowly, dragging his feet as he walked back towards the car. That corner space was intriguing; the sunlight, tinted marigold where it pooled there, occasionally flickered with shadows. It was not unlike the sight of a bird flying over the sun. Hakuryuu slowed to a halt, watching for the movement. 

There it was again! Of course, Hakuryuu thought glumly, Titus and Sphintus weren’t there to see it too. If he told them, odds were Sphintus would shoot it down the idea right away. Curse concrete evidence. 

The air conditioner continued to hum a perfect B-natural. A cloud passed, an anomaly in the blue sky, and the dark spot in the corner flickered its staccato beat. Feeling dreamlike, a tingling sensation stealing under his skin, Hakuryuu steered away from the green sedan and approached.

Like viewing a holographic sticker, as Hakuryuu changed his perspective on the corner, the image changed too. This time, Hakuryuu found the guts to speak. “How did you find me again?”

Judal - his body perfectly visible only if Hakuryuu didn’t move his head - only smiled, beckoning him closer. 

Did he even have a choice? Hakuryuu stepped further into the corner. Judal’s outfit was a new level of weird; a rain poncho with a t-shirt beneath that simply displayed a tree frog over the pocket, velvety looking leggings, and an obnoxiously neon green pair of jelly sandals.

He worked up the courage to speak again, but it was harder this time. As the center of Judal’s attention, he felt like the fulcrum of the universe. There was a ringing in his ears, a distinct wrongness about the being before him. But a rightness, too. “What have I done to deserve this?” He asked, trying to resist looking once again into Judal’s eyes. 

“That’s what we’re here to find out.” Judal cornered Hakuryuu’s gaze, and their eyes met. Hakuryuu was charged; no, not like a battery, he thought. More like when you get to the best part of a song, and everything comes into focus. 

“I’m trying to find you,” he said, his mouth dry, “have I?”

“Not yet!” Judal laughed, like Hakuryuu had told him something incredibly witty. “But you might, I dunno. We’ll see.”

He was here, and they were talking, and Hakuryuu was almost (almost, but not quite) over that nebulous threshold, that boundary he couldn’t yet define. 

Judal was strange up close, and Hakuryuu couldn’t stop looking at him. Was this how you were supposed to view artwork, or a natural disaster in progress?

“I have some presents for you. If you want to keep looking for me, that is?” Judal’s multi tonal voice thinned with the inflection of a question, watering down to a light, reedy hum. 

“Why wouldn’t I want to keep looking? I can’t stop now.”

“Then stick out your hand so I can give em to you!”

Strangely unapprehensive, Hakuryuu held out his hand, cupping it. Into his palm, seemingly from thin air, Judal placed a clean, dry peach pit and a cheap plastic spinning top. “You’ll know what these bad boys are for soon enough… and now it’s my turn! I have a question for you!”

Hakuryuu closed his hand, clutching the items. “Yes?”

“What’s your name?” He blinked, curiosity showing through his features. 

“It’s Hakuryuu. Or just Ryuu. Whatever,” he mumbled, hoping the admittedly pretentious name he’d chosen for himself didn’t embarrass Judal into never seeking him out again. 

“I’ll see you on the flipside, Hakuryuu,” Judal purred his name in three syllables, a grin dimpling his cheek.

A wind blew, and in the distance, a chorus of wind chimes rang out like miniature church bells. Just like that, Judal was gone, and Hakuryuu was alone in the parking lot, bidding a clumsy farewell to the empty air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, with this chapter the story is gonna start moving faster for sure!!! It's something of a turning point in the plot! I haven't been hearing much from my readers, but if you've got the time, just quickly letting me know how I'm doing would be real nice :) Thanks for reading!!!!!


	12. Old Sudbury Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little blurb from me; basically all the Weird places I'm gonna be writing about in this fic/have already written about are totally real! They might not all align exactly with the geography of this road trip, but I took artistic liberty and moved them all sorta closer together for optimal fun and shenanigans. If anybody has the time to look stuff up I highly encourage it! :)

That night in the hotel room, Titus did not dream about his mother.

Instead, he dreamed of the forest near his childhood home. The woods, he assumed for years, were cool and deep, with creeping vines and carpets of moss. In his dream, they were just that. He didn’t feel the urge to sneeze from some nearby allergen, and the air was clear of any insects that might decide to give him hives, so Titus took the opportunity to explore. He climbed rocks, examined toadstools and indian pipe and orchids growing in the thick soil.

As he wound his way deeper into the trees, he noticed a trail of small footprints in the moss. On a whim, he followed, plunging further into the woodland shade. He lost track of time, focusing only on the trail. 

He found no one, but he discovered he didn’t much mind. For a while he stood, watching leaves shift in the breeze in the canopy high above. A salamander scurried on stumpy limbs up the trunk of an oak tree. Titus probably would have gone after it, too, if Hakuryuu hadn’t woken him up. 

Sitting down in their booth seat at Friendly’s, picking up his menu, Titus daydreamed about how it had felt to explore. He wished he’d been allowed to when he was young, but he had a feeling his dream was close enough to reality to satisfy him for a while.

What should he have for a drink? He considered orange juice before remembering how ill the acidity made him feel. Probably just some black coffee, then. Hakuryuu was the only one who liked it iced. Sphintus typically enjoyed his with sickening amounts of sugar. 

Hakuryuu slid into the booth beside him, his eyes bright and wide, almost feverish. The sudden movement startled Titus, who looked up sharply from the menu. “Hey, you’re back! Did you find your phone okay?” He had an instant gut reaction; something was not the same.

His friend nodded, plopping his phone and the sheaf of maps onto the tabletop. “But that’s not all,” he said, his voice strained by apprehension, “I have… other things, too.” He held up his prosthetic, the fingers curled around some small object. “I’m not showing them unless you promise you’ll believe me about where they came from.”

Sphintus sighed heavily but held up one hand in a salute. “No arguments from me. Boy scout’s honor.”

“You were never a boy scout, Sphin, stop lying! I wasn’t either, obviously, but I can give some other kind of pledge of you want!” Titus was starting to feel slightly guilty about not supporting Hakuryuu’s earlier claims. This time, he would make up for his previous shortcomings.

Hakuryuu relaxed, carefully placing two items on the table. One was a fruit pit, a plum or peach seed. The other was a plastic top, like the kind found in children’s birthday party gift bags. “Judal was waiting for me in the parking lot, and we talked. He knows my name now.” Hakuryuu pushed the top around thoughtfully. “I think… he was judging me. Interviewing me, making sure I was worthy to go after him.”

“Did you make the cut?” Titus felt a strong urge to take the top and spin it.

“I’m pretty sure I did because gave me these. He told me they would help, but I don’t get how this stuff could help anyone do anything. Unless I wanted to plant a peach tree.”

Sphintus picked up the wizened seed, running a finger over the crevasses and wrinkles on its surface. “This is definitely a peach pit.” He brought it closer, smelling it. “It still smells peachy. Maybe you have to break it? Or it’s just something that has to do with peaches?”

“Like a riddle?” Titus suggested. He was very good at riddles. He even used to have a book when he was younger that was all about the strategies to solving them.

Hakuryuu unfolded a map, spreading it out. “That could be. I’ll look for anything related to fruit nearby, too.”

At last, Titus’ impulse control would no longer hold back his desire to spin the top. Nimbly, he grabbed it up, setting it off with a hard spin in one corner of the map. Finally, his longing was sated. 

Hakuryuu, distracted, blinked up at the top. “Thanks Titus, for that-” he paused, watching the toy’s movement. “Um, is it just me or is it heading in my direction?”

It was not just Hakuryuu. The toy was booking it across the map, traversing the Berkshires with ease. Titus laughed, watching it go. “It’s attracted to you!”

“Wait, it’s stopping,” Hakuryuu muttered, and all three of them bent over to get a closer look at the place where the top suddenly ceased its journey to the east, spinning rapidly without decelerating at all. 

Sphintus grabbed a napkin, using a broken crayon left over from an earlier kid’s meal to copy down the coordinates. “Listen, as long as we’re believing the weird stuff, might as well go with whatever we have, right?”

Hakuryuu looked up at him, gratefulness underlying his smile. “Right.” Gently, he lifted the top off the map, examining the spot it had been so gravitated towards. “Why am I not surprised? There’s nothing there.”

“Somehow, doesn’t that make it more likely he actually will be there?” Titus thought, one of his hands wandering over to play with the sugar packets. “He seems to like weird stuff. If there’s a secret weird thing thirty miles northwest of here that he happens to really dig, who are we to look a gift spinny thing in the mouth?”

Exuding a confidence, a determination that Titus hardly saw in Hakuryuu in the past weeks and months, Hakuryuu fixed his gaze in the schism between two rural roads. “I agree. We should get there as soon as possible.”

***

“Here’s something interesting.” Sphintus, now in the passenger’s seat, turned to face Titus, who was taking a turn watching the terrarium in the back. Sphintus was grinning, holding up the peach pit, poised to read off his phone. 

Titus sat forwards. “Lemme hear!” They were twenty minutes out from Salem, and Hakuryuu was driving with almost robotic speed, sometimes going just a few miles under the speed limit. Titus was eager for even a little more information before they reached their destination, whatever awaited them there. 

“So I looked up peaches, and then facts about peaches, and then I started finding fairy tales and legends about peaches. But get this; in almost all of them, peaches are supposed to represent gay stuff. And in this one article, it says fruit, especially peaches, used to be popular to give to people you were courting. Another thing says their magical aspects are in life magic and vitality if you wanna believe that. I like the gay stuff better, which leads me to one conclusion.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Somebody has a crush on Hakuryuu!”

Hakuryuu gripped the wheel, and Titus had to hold back a tirade of laughter. “Nope,” he flushed, his scar darkening much faster than the rest of his face, “that’s a lie, also no. No way. He’s not even human, why would that even- and I’m feeding into this, you’re thriving off my embarrassment.”

“Damn right I am!” Sphintus looked very smug.

“But what if he does like-like you?” Titus teased. “He probably thinks you’re cute. He gave you a gay dating fruit pit!”

 

“But what if no? Because that’s ridiculous?” Hakuryuu sputtered. “It’s gotta be something else! He’s given no indication of that being the case, we don’t even know each other! He’s either just fucking with me for fun, or he actually wants to see if I’m worthy of entering his world. Whatever that might mean.”

Titus was on a roll. He could not be stopped. “Hakuryuu and Judal… what a cute couple! Everything you could want in a love story! They met cute and one of them is an unknowable supernatural entity!”

Hakuryuu’s ensuing grimace was very satisfying. Not that Titus liked to intentionally upset his friends, but what was the harm in a little teasing? If he hit a sore spot, Titus vowed to never press Hakuryuu more than could be justified under the umbrella of good fun. 

“When is the wedding?” He chirped. “Am I gonna be the best man?”

Hakuryuu grunted. “Nope, you are cordially not invited. One of my plants will be my best man. They’re not rude to me.”

“They can’t even talk!”

“Exactly.” Hakuryuu swiftly applied the brakes, turning suddenly onto a ramp. “We’re getting closer. Sphin, will you navigate for me? We might need those precise coordinates.”

Sphintus pulled out the napkin from his shirt pocket. “I’m on it.” He tapped quickly into his phone, fingers dancing over the screen. “Got it! Okay, turn left the next chance you get, and when you get to a long curve in the road look for sort of a smaller path going off on a tangent.”

Rolling his eyes, Hakuryuu put on his turn signal. “You know I hate that word. I hate calculus. I hate math. I never want to hear about a tangent line ever again.”

“Tangent,” Sphintus repeated, “tangent, derivative, tangent. Numbers.”

“Maybe I’ll start talking about something you suck at,” Hakuryuu retorted, “like cleaning Windex. Sponges. Soap. Sweeping.” Now the road was shady, but the pavement was clearly damaged under the darkness the overarching branches cast it into.

Sphintus humphed, crossing his arms. “Whatever. I’m great at cleaning, I just don’t like doing it.”

“You say that, but I’ve seen the bathroom at your house after you supposedly cleaned it!” Titus shrugged. “I’m just saying…”

Hakuryuu pulled off the main road, the car bumping and jolting on the gravel off-shoot. “Okay, okay, that’s enough. Sphin, tell me when to stop.”

“Gotcha, gaylord commander-in-chief. Keep going… keep going… and stop!” Sphintus pointed over the dashboard to a wide gap in the trees lining the road. Slowing to a crawl, Hakuryuu pulled over, turning off the engine. Saying nothing more, he took a deep breath and stepped out.

Hurrying to follow, Titus hopped out into weeds that grew almost to his knees. He sneezed instantly, then again, then twice more. There was definitely pollen in the air, or spores, or maybe just dust. Who knew! It was always a fun game to guess at which allergen lurked nearby. 

Once he managed to stop sneezing, Titus blinked his watery eyes in the sunlight, taking in the sight of a small, rectangular field. It was about ten meters long, perhaps four meters wide, full of weeds and spindly wildflowers. Cicadas buzzed in the trees all around. Crickets hopped here and there, and Titus could spot the occasional white butterfly in the weeds, resting on a stem or fluttering lazily in and out of sight. 

In the center of the clearing, though, was a fascinating tableau. A dozen wooden rocking horses, give or take one, sat in perfect stillness, arranged in a circle. They were weathered, their bright paint coming away in ragged patches. There was something about them that made Titus feel a little dizzy, like an optical illusion. If not for them, the field would have been completely ordinary. 

Sphintus whistled. “Wow. I’ve never been this close to the set of a horror movie before. This looks like the usual spot sacrifices to the underworld take place in.”

Already wading through the grass, Hakuryuu snorted dismissively. “Now you’re being overdramatic. It’s kinda spooky, but not in that way.” He stopped at the edge of the ring, examining it. “This has got to be it. How stupid do you think it would be for me to just hop inside this thing?”

“Pretty stupid,” Titus hustled through the weeds to stand at his side, “but I guess we’re both about to be pretty stupid.”

Groaning loudly, Sphintus reluctantly joined them. “What happened to thinking before you did things? If you two are going in there, it’s useless to try and stop you, obviously. But I can’t let you do this stupid-ass thing alone.”

Titus grabbed both their hands. “We’ll go together! On my count!

“One!

“Two!”


	13. The Devil Went Down To Massachusetts

“Three!”

When Titus leaped into the gap between two battered wooden ponies, what choice did Sphintus have but to go right along? Of course he couldn’t let his friends embark on the moronic journey of a lifetime alone, no matter how short the journey was. Half of him didn’t believe anything would happen once they entered the circle. His other half, though, consumed with vague paranoia, wouldn’t allow him to stand by and watch. 

Believing wholeheartedly was one thing, Sphintus reasoned. On the other hand, fearing the unknown was natural. A healthy dose of fear would do anyone good. 

In another split instant, Sphintus hit the ground. He looked around, quickly. To his satisfaction, nothing changed; the field was exactly the same as it had been outside the ring. 

And of course, of fucking course, Hakuryuu instantly did something weird. Because, Sphintus contemplated, he was just _that_ friend now. He guessed he was okay with that. He guessed he was okay with Hakuryuu instantly releasing Titus’ hand, walking into the middle of the ring and starting up a quiet conversation with no one. 

He was suddenly acutely aware that now he was just holding Titus’ hand with no real reason to. It was a very nice hand. Before he could appreciate it too much, Sphintus made himself let go. 

Titus was clearly just as puzzled as he by the absence of any significant discovery, minus Hakuryuu’s furtive conversation with empty space. “He… is he okay?” He whispered, eyebrows drawing together. 

“I really don’t know, and I’m scared to go over there and find out,” Sphintus muttered back. 

Hakuryuu turned back to face them, equally confused. “Uh, you can see him, right?” He gestured to a spot in midair. 

Before Sphintus could say no, it was like a spell took effect. Where before there was nothing at all, suddenly there Judal was, conjured up by Hakuryuu’s simply calling attention to his invisible presence. He was wearing something comparably normal when placed against his previous outfit from the museum; a black t-shirt featuring a white decal of a sphinx cat and sort of pleathery looking leggings. 

His smile was absurdly wide. “Now this is a party! The gang’s all here!” Judal’s eyes flicked between the three of them, and Sphintus could just barely manage to hold his mouth shut so it wouldn’t flop open like that of a dead fish. 

Hakuryuu chuckled awkwardly, giving an oddly pedestrian impression to the whole thing like he was only being made to introduce his school friends to his work friends in a classic ‘worlds collide’ kind of way. “I told you guys, and uh, here he is!” He grinned.

While Sphintus was still dumbfounded, Titus burst out into a barrage of questions, his voice reaching the particular pitch that made him sound haughty. “So you’re really real? How can you prove it? Is Mothman real? Are aliens real? What about ghosts? Is Judal your real name?”

Judal looked momentarily surprised, thin black eyebrows shooting up. “Jeez, I should’ve expected your buddies to be just as excitable as you…” He gave Hakuryuu a look like they were commiserating, “and yeah, duh I’m real. No, I can’t prove I’m real, cause for all you know nothing is real. Don’t know, don’t know, probably, and of course, that’s my name, don’t wear it out!”

“My name is Titus and it’s nice to meet you officially!” Titus put out his hand, and before Sphintus could hiss at him to please, please think about what he was doing, Judal blinked out of sight and appeared just in front of him. He extended his own long-fingered hand and shook. 

Judal was even stranger up close. His presence made the air buzz and spark. It was as though he could sense Sphintus’ reluctance to believe what was right in front of his face, and he was reaching out with invisible hands to tear any mental restraint he might have to shreds. 

Judal released Titus’ hand, his attention turning to Sphintus. “Don’t be shy now,” he said, his face shifting, layer upon layer of shadows and expressions blurring together, “what’s your name?”

At last, Sphintus worked up the nerve to speak. “Sphintus Carmen.” He breathed, the urge to run away building in him. How was it that Hakuryuu and Titus were already so used to this?

“Do you like games, Sphintus? Competition among friends?”

Seeing Hakuryuu nod at him urgently, Sphintus nodded too, feeling like he was being fed lines. “More or less, uh, sure.”

“What about you, Hakuryuu?” Judal spoke his name in a long, drawn out sort of way, inserting syllables where there were none, and it made Sphintus distinctly uncomfortable. 

“Why not?” Hakuryuu smiled. “I’m a fan of games.”

“Perfect!” Judal’s eyes glittered, continuing to flick back and forth. “Why don’t we have ourselves a challenge? Best two out of three? If you guys win, I’ll let you get closer to finding me. If I win, I get all your souls. Deal?”

Not leaving Sphintus with sufficient time even to panic, Hakuryuu agreed right away. “Yeah. Why not? I like those odds.”

“Great, glad to hear it! I’ll give you three some time to prepare.”

Sphintus, doing his best not to explode, dragged Hakuryuu into a huddle. “What the hell was that? You didn’t even ask us if we were okay with that! Now I’m probably gonna get my soul stolen, and it’ll be all your fault!”

“Not if we win!” Titus, bless his heart, looked cartoonishly eager to enter a contest where his life force was on the line. 

Hakuryuu, though, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry. I only considered myself in that bargain. To be honest, though, I don’t see what he would do with all our souls, and in spite of everything, he doesn’t seem evil. Let’s just try our best, and if we do lose, I’ll try to make him a counter-offer.”

Relenting, Sphintus shook his head. “I still can’t believe… whatever. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, let’s focus on winning.”

“Helloooo?” Judal called to them. “Are you done over there? I’m getting booored!”

Hakuryuu faced him, wearing only what Sphintus could describe as a look of sheer impudence. “We’re ready. Do your worst.”

Judal held up his arms, a gnarled, blackened violin appearing in his grasp. It was made of dark rotting wood, and the hairs of the bow looked ashen and grey, like they’d been held over a fire. “The first contest is a music battle! Whoever plays a better song wins!”

“Who judges?” Hakuryuu crossed his arms, flesh over prosthetic. 

“I think it should be obvious to all of us whose song is better. We’ll all agree together who the clear winner is.”

Titus cleared his throat. “Um, we might have a problem,” he whispered, “I don’t think any of us know how to play.”

It looked like suddenly, Sphintus had just become their saving grace. “I actually played clarinet for a while,” he muttered, “but I’m not sure how much I remember. Better than nothing, right?”

Hakuryuu nodded. “Guess so. It’ll have to do. Even if you don’t make the cut, we still have two more chances.” 

Feeling the burden of their souls on his shoulders, Sphintus stepped away from Titus and Hakuryuu towards the specter waiting for him in the middle of the ring. “Right yeah. I’ll play.”

“Weapon of choice?”

“Clarinet,” Sphintus said, meekly, trying to recall the notes of any song at all. Maybe this was a bluff, and Judal was terrible at the violin. Or he was just messing with all of their heads and none of this meant a damn thing. Judal waved his bow, and a rusted clarinet fell into Sphintus’ hands, all knotted dark wood and tarnished metal.

In an instant, Sphintus’ hopes were dashed. With a flourish, his fingers flying across the fiddle strings, Judal let a torrent of sound burst into the air. The notes howled, like the instrument itself was in agony, but their anguished tones harmonized regardless. Sphintus shrunk back in awe, fear pouring its bitter humor down his spine. 

This was not a song a human being could play, he felt, almost immediately. 

It was over as quickly as it had begun, leaving the air dry and empty. Judal lowered the instrument, grinning wickedly. “Now it’s your turn, Sphintus Carmen.”

Sphintus tried to stop his hands from shaking, but he found he could not. He raised the instrument to his lips, recalling the only song he’d ever really mastered. The clarinet groaned, laboring as Sphintus forced his breath through the dry reed, the notes to Hot Cross Buns falling limply into the weeds at his feet. 

“I’ll just… yeah, that’s all I got.” Sphintus sighed heavily, offering the clarinet back and watching it disappear into smoke. 

Cackling gleefully, Judal smirked at him. “I think we can all see who won there. Looks like I just have luck on my side today!”

Titus, fuming, stepped into the middle of the ring. “That wasn’t fair! You knew you’d be better at music than us, you’re rigging this! It’s my turn now and I get to pick the game and I pick fencing!”

Moving back to the sidelines, Sphintus got safely out of range of whatever was about to happen. Regardless of the outcome, that was plenty heroic of Titus. Sphintus made a mental note to tell him how brave that was later if Judal wasn’t in possession of their immortal souls at that point. Damn… the longer he thought about it, the grimmer the situation was turning out to be.

Judal shrugged, a long rusted foil materializing in his left hand. “That’s fine with me!”

On the other side of the ring, Hakuryuu was looking infuriatingly unworried about the prospect of their imminent demise. Didn’t he know what he’d gotten them all into? Or was he just that confident? Meanwhile, Titus was put into possession of his favourite sabre, Judal summoning it from where it had been stored in Titus’ fencing bag in the trunk. What were the limits of Judal’s abilities? Could he make any object appear that he wanted? And why?

What even was he?

Titus put on hand behind his back. “Hakuryuu, you be ref, you’ve seen like all my matches!”

Stil laughing to himself, Judal made a wild lunge towards Titus. “What is it I’m supposed to say? En garde? Whatever, too late now!”

The simple truth was that Titus was a very competent fencer. He always tried to downplay his skills, but Sphintus, as a mostly objective observer, knew he was more than mediocre. Which was how Titus always described himself. Judal was holding his own, but he swung far too wide, and Titus, on Hakuryuu’s call, quickly racked up points.

Judal also seemed not to understand the concept of ‘right of way,’ and Hakuryuu had to foul him on it twice. Sphintus had to admit… things were looking up.

Triumphantly, Titus landed a double-touch on Judal, springing at him with incredible swiftness. He was arresting to watch, especially in that final moment, his hair made golden and shining in the sunlight, his sea foam eyes victoriously alight. God, did he seriously just think that? Sphintus shook his head, trying in vain to clear it out. 

“And that’s it! Titus wins!” Hakuryuu stopped them, holding up both hands. Judal’s mood wasn’t dampened in the least by his loss. He only shrugged, his foil dissipating into mist. 

They could win, Sphintus thought, if they were lucky. If Hakuryuu happened to be good at the final game. Hakuryuu was very good at a handful of things, and abysmal at many, many others. 

Judal seemed to be thinking, multiple layers of expression visible on his face all at once. It was dizzying to watch for too long, and eventually, Sphintus had to make himself look off into the trees. “I’ve got it!” Judal crowed. “Our last game, Hakuryuu, is gonna go like this. You say three things, and I say three things, only one of the things is a lie and we have to guess which thing it is!”

This looked like it threw Hakuryuu off guard. “Somehow I thought you couldn’t lie, or you wouldn’t be able to. I don’t know.”

Judal laughed, and this time it sounded genuine like he just heard a particularly funny joke. There was nothing mean or false about it, nothing duplicitous. “Oh no, you’re getting me mixed up with faeries, which again, I have no clue about. Are they real? I have no fuckin idea. But no, don’t worry, I can totally lie.”

Sphintus wondered how Hakuryuu would choose what to say. It was impossible to know how much of their lives this being was familiar with. Was even asking for their names just a formality?

Much too quickly for comfort, Hakuryuu displaced Titus in the center, looking absurdly confident.   
“I’ll go first. One: I lost my arm because of a cut that got infected. I was young and didn’t want to tell my mother I’d been hurt because I wasn’t supposed to play in the lot down the street where it happened. Two: I’ve never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, but once I accidentally asked out my step-sister’s girlfriend. In my defense, I didn’t know they were a couple, I just thought they were good friends.

“Three: I once won a small cooking competition in freshman year among all the people in our dorm. I made lobster balls, which was kind of unorthodox, but the judges ended up liking them.

“There, now you go.”

Judal smiled thinly, acquiescing. “First of all, I’m twenty-three years old, but I was born on leap-year, so if you wanna be funny I’m basically only six. Second, I wasn’t born in the United States. And third… let’s see… oh, when I was seventeen I had an accelerated internship at a museum. The curator really liked me, said I was eager enough about the work that he would hire me as soon as I graduated.”

Those answers weren’t what Sphintus had expected from him in the least. None of the things he’d said were cryptic or weird. In fact, they were bafflingly mundane. Lots of people were born on leap-year. Sphintus could name a good twenty classmates of his who weren’t born on American soil. Having an internship at a museum was a little strange, but Sphintus was sure that dozens of museum internships carried on every day without his knowledge. In a way, the normalcy of the statements was the oddest thing about them.

There was another long stretch of quiet before Judal made his guess. “Your lie had to be number two, right? I have a really hard time believing you’ve never been in a relationship like you’re too pretty. Too unique. You probably just draw people in like flies to honey, don’t you?”

Hakuryuu’s blush was visible from the edge of the ring, but his wide grin was even more noticeable. “Wrong. The lie was number one. I was born without a hand, it just happened that way. Was your lie number three? It just seems out of place to me is all. No offense.”

“None taken! But you were wrong too! I was born here alright, on the Florida panhandle.” Judal smiled, almost innocently. “That was a ton of fun, but it looks like we have ourselves a draw. I couldn’t take your souls anyway, even if I wanted to. What do I look like, the Devil?”

With a final bout of laughter, Judal disappeared, leaving nothing behind him but eerie silence. 

Taking a long, deep breath, Hakuryuu looked up to the sky, which was rapidly darkening, filling with clouds. “I was so close.” He said, clearly, and then he tightened a fist at his side. “We have to keep going. No stopping now.”

Something happened in Sphintus’ ears, a loud pop, and quickly he realized this was because he was very angry, and secondly because he was fiercely grinding his teeth. “No, we don’t,” he huffed, a stream of anger trickling through a weakening emotional dam, “because that was fucking insane. What just happened. Not even touching on the part where you almost sold our souls.”

In the corner of his eye, Sphintus could see Titus’ wincing recoil, but he no longer cared. “I really, truly through his would just be kind of a quirky vacation, but it’s not, and this thing is consuming you. I mean shit, not to be dramatic, but have you ever had a single responsibility? A job you kept for more than a few months? A real career path? You’re out here and you think you’re living this big adventure, and we’re getting dragged along with you, but do you wonder what the fuck happens when we go home?”

He desperately wanted Hakuryuu to respond, to tell him to stop, anything, but he was just staring, looking pale and dumb, and another hole burst in the dam. “When we go home, I have five more years of school waiting for me, and a residency after that, and you get to sit with your thumb in your ass waiting for the perfect major to come knock on the door. Just… I… fuck you, okay?”

When the words left him, Sphintus knew he’d made a mistake. Did he even know what he was really angry at? It was abruptly, painfully clear that whatever part Hakuryuu was playing in his constant, nonzero stress level, it hadn’t been worth saying what he did.

But it was too late, and Sphintus Carmen was not his mother, was not someone who could easily mitigate the hurt beneath another’s skin, in their psyche. Hakuryuu simply turned, still saying nothing, and walked off into the verdant blackness of the trees.


	14. Alaska Pete's Bar and Grill

It had begun to rain, a torrential downpour, and the tree cover could not keep fat drops of it from falling down into the darkness, soaking Hakuryuu to the bone. Titus still had his sleeveless hoodie, though of course, that wouldn’t have been much. But it would have been something, at least.

Maybe he shouldn’t have walked off like that, but in retrospect, it was the only thing to do. He didn’t like fights. When he was still home, even when he was a young child, he would start crying at the smallest signs of confrontation. Eventually, though, he started being reprimanded for crying too, and he gave that up for safer reactions. Either he would retreat, relocating his conscious mind to a place outside the experience his body was having, or he would snap at his aggressor, falling back on the anger and desperation he tried to distance himself from.

He didn’t want to stick around long enough for the second option to become a threat.

He stopped walking, looking up into a canopy of leaves so dark they were more black than green. The rain helped, in a way. It tightened the strings that held his mind to his body, bringing him back into himself. He was suddenly aware of so much. The pounding of rain, the sweet smell of forest rot.

Sphintus had been right in a lot of ways, thought Hakuryuu, walking alongside the bleached, decaying trunk of a fallen tree. Hakuryuu didn’t carry the responsibilities of his mother because, after a certain point, he’d started to shut her out of his mind on all fronts. He could faintly recall her telling him to be a lawyer or something like that, but he knew that was never an option.

He kept walking, winding deeper into the woodland. His shoes were soaking wet, and let out a feeble squish with each step. There was also the matter of his many short-lived jobs, he thought, stepping over a rippling patchwork of pine roots sticking up from the muddy earth. None of his friends knew the real reason why he’d lost them. Why he was fired, he corrected himself.

It was supposed to be illegal to fire an employee in Massachusetts on discrimination-based charges. But every time Hakuryuu was conveniently let go, his boss had another excuse at the ready to explain why he just ‘wasn’t keeping the pace’ or ‘bad at customer service.’ He knew, though, in his heart of hearts, what those looks from his higher-ups meant as he’d been transitioning over the last year. 

Hakuryuu knew every time what he was risking when he checked off the preferred name box on an application, and he did it anyway, every time.

Sighing heavily, he sat down on the sloping side of a glacial erratic, feeling lichen crunch beneath him. He probably wouldn’t be able to hear anyone coming through the rain, but he had a feeling that nobody was looking for him.

Then there was the matter of his major. Which he unbelievably hadn’t settled on. First arriving at MIT, it was biology, which changed to linguistics, which changed to business, and so on and so forth. None of them fit Hakuryuu. In the end, he could not see himself living a life in any of those professions. 

He just had to find one that fit, he told himself every time he switched. Maybe nothing would fit. What would he do then? Take yet another goddamn career aptitude test? 

There was another powerful rumble of thunder, which shook Hakuryuu down to his marrow. It was getting so dark he could barely see. In an odd way, this comforted him, but in the more rational part of his mind, he felt he should find shelter. As he got up, pushing through a copse of young spruce trees, he briefly considered continuing the search for Judal on his own. This was a thing that did fit him. If his friends weren’t going to follow him, he couldn’t make them.

Feeling the resolve calcify around his heart, Hakuryuu slid carefully down a steep slope of clay and loose stones, landing in a thick patch of damp marigolds. He was out of the woods, he realized, and the rain fell freely down on his bare shoulders and already drenched hair. There was a road in sight, a thin one riddled with potholes, and a crumbling parking lot, out of which the marigolds grew. 

There was a building there too, in one corner. It was boxy and rectangular, windows all along the front, and the red-painted metal roof was flaking and rusted in his sections. On the bolted door, Hakuryuu could see a peeling sign, which as he approached proved to read ‘condemned’ in blocky letters.

Well, it was better than being out in the elements. Hakuryuu drew near with caution, feeling the rows of windows watch him like deadened eyes. The bolt wasn’t secured properly at all and came away with ease. Inside smelled like mold, the scent of a flooded basement hitting Hakuryuu the moment he opened the door, but he stepped in any way.

He was half expecting to find something astonishing inside, like a fully furnished and bustling restaurant, but he discovered nothing but leaf litter, shadows, and some overturned tables. A sign over the deserted bar announced “Alaska Pete’s Bar and Grill.”

The restaurant wasn’t completely empty, though. It was almost relieving to catch sight of a familiar profile squished inside a cracking booth seat, knees pulled to his chest. This time, Judal’s face was obscured. Smudged, even, like an oil painting smeared by a wet sponge. He looked sad, Hakuryuu thought, watching Judal watch the rain trickle down the windows. 

Judal looked up, the smudge over his head retreating. There was something different about him now; he grinned, beckoning Hakuryuu with one hand, but there wasn’t any supernatural vector in the room. Judal was no longer the focusing point of Hakuryuu’s world.

“What’s wrong? Dontcha want to sit? Shit, you look soaked, what happened to you?” He snorted a laugh, and Hakuryuu sat down beside him like they were just two normal people about to order lunch. 

Hakuryuu shrugged. “You know how it is. I got caught in the rain.”

“Only losers get caught in the rain. Losers, and the sad rejected love interest in romcoms.” He shook his head in disapproval, but he was still smiling. Hakuryuu felt that Judal was a person, with warm skin and a pulse, not a long-limbed specter with nothing inside. It took him by surprise. Could it be possible that Judal really was just a human?

“Judal, what are you?” He asked. “Who are you? I don’t understand. I feel like I never will. But I want to. Are you a person? Something more? And why? Why do you live like this?” He looked into Judal’s eyes, his heart pounding. Maybe this was it, the moment Judal allowed him into his world. 

Amused, Judal held his gaze. “You think I’m gonna tell you just like that? A guy’s gotta have secrets. I love attention, trust me, but we’re gonna do this fair and square. I’ll tell you a story about myself, only if you tell me one about yourself. Is it a deal?”

Hakuryuu didn’t even need a moment to think. “Yes. Yes, it’s worth it.”

“You go first then! You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” Judal settled back in the seat, pulling up his long legs and resting his heels on the table.

Hakuryuu, feeling like a masochist of the highest degree, settled quickly on a story. Telling it in third person would be enough to distance himself from the memory of it, right? “I have one. Once upon a time… shit, I shouldn’t start like that. It’s not a fairy tale.”

“Hah, no it’s fine. Keep going!”

“Okay, okay. Once upon a time, there was this little girl. She had an older sister, and two older brothers, a mother, and a father. When the girl was five, the family went to stay at a vacation house in the woods on Cape Cod. It was in dry season, in August, and in the middle of the night, a bonfire some college kids had made nearby got out of hand. It started spreading through the forest, getting bigger and bigger.

“The sister woke up when she smelled the smoke. The house was burning, collapsing around them.” Hakuryuu felt sweat prick the back of his neck, but he continued on. “The mother woke too, and she, the sister, and one brother ran from the burning house. But the brother wanted to go back because there were still people inside. So he saved the little girl, got her free of the rubble, and she crawled through the smoke to the door.”

He omitted describing the pain. He could never find any words for it that would do it justice.

“The brother didn’t make it back out. Neither did the eldest brother, or the father. The girl was safe, though. Scarred forever, but alive. Her mother was devastated, and she clung to her remaining children. They became so important in her mind as to blot out the loss of the other family members.”

He didn’t have to keep going now, but he would. He couldn’t leave off there. “But… eventually, as she got older, the girl realized she wasn’t a girl at all.” His mouth was dry, but he couldn’t stop. “He was a boy. With a new name, his sister helped him pick. Only in his mother’s mind, all her sons were dead. She’d created this shrine to him, a perfect version of him that didn’t exist anymore. It was all in her head. She ignored his pleas to be acknowledged as her son, lashed out at him when he tried to make himself understood.

“She just kept imagining a little girl who wasn’t real, trying to superimpose that person onto reality. And that fucking hurt, I guess. You can’t tell someone they mean everything to you and then deny them their identity, their sense of self in the next breath.” He trailed off, unable to think of another thing to add.

Judal sighed. “Is the story over? It seems over to me.” Hakuryuu was startled to find a hand on his face, a finger wiping a single tear from his unscarred cheek.

He flushed, nearly pulling away. How embarrassing of him… “It’s over, yeah. It doesn’t really have an ending yet.” Why was Judal being so soft on him? Was he feeling pity for Hakuryuu, who couldn’t cry when he was upset or angry, but only when he thought about his own life too clearly?

Just as quickly as he’d taken Hakuryuu’s tear, Judal pulled his hand away, sitting upright. “I respect that. Open endings can be interesting. That way there’s always room for more to happen. Ready for my story?”

Hakuryuu composed himself, nodding. 

“So, like, once upon a time there was this guy who was wandering around hitchhiking. He got kicked out of his house, which wasn’t a huge deal or anything, happens all the time. His parents just started thinking he was fucked up, going against god’s plan for him. Wanted him to stop pretending to be a man, cause that made any sense.”

Hakuryuu, bewildered, gripped the table. “H-hold on, are you messing with me? I just got done spilling out all my… my _trans angst_ or whatever the fuck for you, and you- you can’t really be-” But it was clear Judal wasn’t lying. They were both the same, somehow. And Judal, whatever he was now, had once been human. “Sorry. I’m sorry, that was rude. You can keep going.”

Judal rolled his eyes. “Psh, it’s okay. I was surprised that you were too. If I was gonna pick something to mess with your head over, it would not be that, trust me.

“Anyway, this guy is just floating around, letting himself go basically wherever the wind takes him. Relying on strangers, stealing shit he might need. It wasn’t much of a life, and he went on and on like that for months. Years, even. Then one night…” He trailed off. 

“Hm? Another open ending?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I’m a fan for those. Stay tuned for the rest, when I feel like it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just still kinda stunned. In a good way, though, like… I can’t believe we’re both… I have another friend who’s trans too, I think I felt just like this when he told me. He already knew about me, since we were in a trans friendly dorm together.”

Judal looked back out the window. “I woulda liked to go to college. Probably. I mean, it’s hard to tell anymore.”

Hakuryuu leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes. He didn’t feel real. He had one foot in Judal’s world and one in his own. He was relieved to talk about his past have someone not smother him in worry or suggest he be ‘seeing someone,’ in that same patronizing tone; the middle ground between care and repulsion, a desire to push Hakuryuu away, insist he be ‘fixed.’

“Listen, I gotta go soon,” came Judal’s voice, into his world of thought, “gotta keep moving. If you want it, I have a real present for you this time. No useless trash… you realize the peach pit was a joke, right? It was just shit, it wasn’t supposed to do anything.”

“Hah, I figured that much. What’s this other mysterious gift then?”

“Sit up and open your eyes, I’ll give it to you. Just promise you’ll keep still, I don’t wanna miss.”

Miss? Wondered Hakuryuu, but he sat up anyway. “Yes. I promise. Can you tell me what it is?”

“Oh,” Judal cackled to himself, obviously amused by some secret punchline, “you’ll see.”

He coughed, hawking up spit, and before Hakuryuu could flinch, he spat into his right eye.

Hakuryuu scrambled away, wiping his face frantically with the back of his hand. “Ew, what the fuck?!” He asked, his voice cracking. By the time he managed to clear the saliva, though, there was no one left for him to question. Judal had vanished. 

Blinking hard, Hakuryuu stood, taking another look at the ruined, gutted insides of Alaska Pete’s Bar and Grill. Judal had been right, he thought, numbly. He _did_ see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all I really appreciate your feedback!! Feel free to tell me what you like/don't like about the fic! I would be Very thankful :)


	15. A Single Floating Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone I am so sorry about how long it took me to get this chapter out.. school just started again, and besides that there's been a lot of Things happening in my life and at home so it's been hard to sit down and write. just as a disclaimer, chapters to come will probably be released irregularly and intermittently... I want to keep up the same level of quality and make this story as good as I know it can be in my heart! I hope you will continue to read, because I am definitely continuing this story even if the chapters take longer :)

“I don’t care how wet I am, I’m going to look for him and you can’t stop me!” Titus called over the sound of the rain, plowing through the damp clinging weeds to where the mouth of the forest yawned. To his delight, he could make out the sounds of Sphintus rustling along behind him. 

It would fall to Titus to mediate, of course. He didn’t know how he felt about that. The first step, he decided, would be getting Sphintus to admit he’d been too harsh. Even if Titus himself agreed with some of the things that were said, there was certainly a better way Sphintus could’ve said them. 

But how was he going to get an apology out of him? As the rain picked up, Sphintus seemed to grow even more silent, retreating into a turtle’s shell of reluctance. 

They passed through a grove of fallen trees, naked and rotting, their pulp sloughing into the soil. Titus plastered on his most saccharine smile, patting Sphintus’ shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry buddy, we’ll find him soon!”

 

Sphintus glanced at him, confused. “Uh, what are you doing?”

 

“Nothing! Does it seem like I’m doing anything?”

“Yes,” Sphintus narrowed his eyes, “it does.”

“Well rest assured I’m not! I just wanted you to know it’s totally not your fault, okay? Just so super not your problem at all.” Titus stretched his smile a little wider before continuing onwards into the dark. 

When Sphintus didn’t respond, Titus kept going. “I mean, you’re so right, our best friend deserved to get yelled at like that. You know what never gets things done? Calm, honest conversations about confronting problems.”

Sphintus groaned, kicking a pine cone. “No, no, it was shitty of me, okay? I’m sorry. It was just a shitty thing to do and I should’ve just talked to him instead of doing… whatever that was.”

“There we go, that’s better! Just save that apology for Hakuryuu, he’s the one it’s meant for.”

“Yeah, alright. Once we find him anyway.”

Titus paused, looking all around, but there was still no sign of Hakuryuu. “Maybe he didn’t even go this way. But how can we tell? Can we track him like an animal?” He bent down, peeking around in the forest loam. “Did he leave prints?”

Shaking his head, Sphintus pulled out his phone. “Or we could just call him. He has his phone still, probably. Unless something happened to it.” He used one hand to shield the screen from the rain, scrolling with the other. “Wait, never mind... “ he grumbled, turning it off and returning it to his pocket, “there’s no service. I think we’re in a dead zone.”

A few feet away, kneeling in the dirt, Titus pointed to a large smear in the moss. “Look! A footprint! Or maybe it’s just like that… or maybe I stepped on it…” They weren’t going to get anywhere at this rate. He stood, brushing off his knees. What else could they do?

Sphintus headed a little further along the bleached trunk of a felled pine, stopping once the ground began to slope downwards into a hollow. “He must’ve really booked it out of here. Or he’s hiding because he doesn’t wanna talk to us. He could be right here, watching, not saying anything.”

“Hakuryuu?” Titus spun around, raising his voice. “You here? We’re not mad! You can tell us if you’re there!”

There was no answer. The rain kept falling, beating on the foliage above. Titus sighed, lowering his head in defeat. 

No, what was that? Titus stiffened, the slightest sound of shifting leaves reaching his ears. His breath caught, and he strained to listen, the sound making its way through the dense woods right in front of them. He flapped a hand at Sphintus, trying to get his attention. “I can hear something!” He whispered. It had to be Hakuryuu.

Sphintus held still, cocking his head to listen. He shrugged, shaking his head. “Uh, I don’t hear anything.”

“I do! My ears are probably better than yours.” Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed Sphintus’ hand, plunging into the trees. It was even darker there, needles and twigs brushing Titus’ arms. Were there any spiders hiding in there? At least there would probably be no horse flies; when he was four, Titus had been bitten by a horsefly, and his face swelled to twice its size with hives. At least there were probably no strawberries, peanuts or fish. Or corn.

Sphintus cursed softly behind him. “Can you please hold the branches out of the way? You keep hitting me in the face.”

“Sorry! I didn’t realize…” Titus trailed off. “It’s gone! I can’t hear the noise anymore. What do we do?”

“I don’t know, Titus. I think the woods are trying to eat us. You need your ears checked, and if Hakuryuu is waiting in these trees to scare us I’m suing him.”

Titus closed his eyes, trying to get the trail back. Thunder roared in the distance, filling his head and ringing in his ears. It was no use. He’d never-

He blinked, looking up at Sphintus. “Sphin, are you pulling on my bracelet?”

Sphintus laughed awkwardly. “Why would I do that? And don’t I have my hands full?” He nodded his head towards the branches he was busy holding off his face. 

“Okay, whatever, probably my imagination.” He sighed, pushing on through the trees. Being stuck in this grove was no use to them. If they were back out in open space, they could see farther. Suddenly, a whiff of something foul hit Titus full-frontal. He gagged, his eyes watering. “W-what is that?!”

 

Sphintus was taken aback too, pressing a hand over his mouth and nose. “Don’t know… but that’s bad…” He wheezed. 

Titus shoved through the last of the trees, almost falling into a swampy pit, frothed at the edges with stagnant water and sickly yellow foam. Several feet below, half-sunken into the murk, was the exposed corpse of a large animal, perhaps a deer or a buck. Its skin had long rotted away, leaving the bones of its vertebrae and ribs jutting upwards. Strewn across the mud were the remains of intestines, thin and ropy. The rain had driven away any flies that might have been feasting off the animal, but Titus could see maggots writhing in the slurry. 

His stomach turning, Titus squeezed Sphintus’ hand hard. “That’s… sad.”

Sphintus raised one shoulder in a shrug. “Not to be insensitive but I’ve seen worse. It’s sadder when it’s a person. The smell, though… usually in a hospital, they can get rid of that.”

Titus stared down at the rib cage, the white lines crisscrossing over each other in a grid. “Yeah, you’re right. It is worse when it’s a person. Don’t you think it looks kinda like a map? Like how the ribs are layered.” He leaned over, looking closer. The skull was mostly submerged, but the horns of the creature stuck out just barely. Turning to follow where they pointed, Titus spotted a massive, lichen-covered rock in the distance, turned on its side. “That way!” Titus called, leaping down into the surrounding mud and rushing towards the boulder.

“How do you know? You’ve never been here before!”

“I just do okay? I just feel like that’s the right way!” He did feel a little bad for literally dragging Sphintus through the mud, but he could feel it in his gut; this was part of Hakuryuu’s path. Every few seconds, he paused, glancing around in the murk for prints. Sure enough, there were indents, and though they swiftly filled with water, Titus was sure they belonged to his friend.

Sphintus bent down, looking from one, to another, to a third. “You had a lucky hunch. These look kinda small like they’re his size.”

“It wasn’t a hunch, I knew! We should follow them!” Titus paused, a memory surfacing in his mind. No, not a memory. “I think I had a dream like this! Last night I had a dream I was following little footprints in the woods. They were too small to be Hakuryuu’s though.”

Having already found the fourth and fifth prints, Sphintus made a thoughtful hum. “I’m not a psychoanalyst or anything but I feel like that could be symbolic. Your subconscious knows we’re chasing after a real creature, so it’s showing you that literal experience in dreams? Or you could just feel like you’re chasing after lots of things. It’s weird that you ended up doing that same thing later in the day, but I’m saying it’s just a coincidence.”

Titus nodded. That made sense, the way Sphintus said it. “Well, okay!” As he continued along the trail, he could feel the rain lightening on his shoulders, the sounds of the downpour growing lesser and lesser. The rainstorm, likely only the first of many sudden summer showers, was already dying down. In a matter of minutes, Titus could see thin beams of wan sunlight filtering down to where they walked. 

The trees made way, parting slowly but surely until Titus was standing at the edge of the woods, on a lightly grassed bluff overlooking a sea of marigolds. The golden ocean rose from a cracked and abandoned parking lot, the asphalt broken into tectonic plates that would further and further apart with the seasons. Across the lot was the derelict husk of a diner, the door just swinging open to cough out a human figure.

Hakuryuu stumbled down the steps and into the marigolds, pressing his palm into his good eye like he was trying to staunch a bleeding wound. Even from a distance, he looked dizzy and bewildered, and he seemed to be unable to walk in a straight line. Was he concussed? Frightened, Titus could not wait for Sphintus to catch up, skidding down the bluff and racing towards Hakuryuu. “Hey! Hakuryuu, are you okay? Sphintus said he’s sorry, by the way, but I’m sure you want to hear it from him! Did you hit your head or something?”

As Hakuryuu’s cloudy eye fell on Titus, his relief was striking, but still, he did not remove his hand. “No, I’m fine. I think. I don’t know. It would make more sense than what I think happened.” His voice was strained, and it broke a little at the end of each sentence.

“Is there something wrong with your eye?” Titus moved closer, trying to move Hakuryuu’s hand away, but Hakuryuu evaded him before he could make contact. 

“There’s nothing wrong with my eye. It’s just…” Slowly, he uncovered his eye, blinking it open in the new sunlight. It was deep, like an optical illusion Titus could almost fall into, the iris fragmented into iridescent chips like a mosaic. It kaleidoscoped, the shattered pieces turning in on themselves. Or was that just in Titus’ head? If he didn’t look too close it seemed normal again, but under scrutiny, the eye grew into a spiraling pit. 

Titus shook his head quickly, trying to clear it. “How did that happen?” He asked, but he already knew the answer. “Can you still see?”

Hakuryuu laughed weakly, nodding. “I can see alright. I just can’t tell what I’m looking at at all. I feel like everything is more real, sharper, but… is it the real world? I don’t know. He called it a gift.” He looked up into the sun, unflinching and unblinking. “He was right.”

It was a strange feeling, but watching Hakuryuu then, Titus was drawn to him on some subatomic level; Hakuryuu was the center of the universe, a black hole, dragging everything into its depths.


	16. Halves

“I get it. I really do. There are just some things I can’t move past no matter how much I kick myself. I shouldn’t have walked away from you, it was… what’s the word… irresponsible? No. I don’t know. I’m sorry I keep making excuses. Okay, okay, now I’m rambling. Am I?’

“No? And I’m the one who should be apologizing. All the stress kind of exploded out of me at once, and if anything I should be trying to control that instead of trying to tell you what to do. It’s not even that important anymore, what’s most important is we get to a hospital and get your eye looked at.” 

“I told you, it doesn’t need to be looked at, Sphintus. There isn’t anything wrong with it. And if it helps, I forgive you. You didn’t ask, but I forgive you.”

“I don’t feel like I deserve to be forgiven. You could've gone out there and had something actually bad happen to you, Hakuryuu, I couldn’t have lived with knowing I did that to one of my best friends. I keep saying all the time I’m here to support you, and I try even when you’re being as transparent as a brick fuckin wall, but maybe I’m just not trying hard enough.”

“It’s not that, trust me. I’m just bad at having people in my life that stay there, I think. I need to do a better job too. Can we just shake on that and call it a day?”

“I’d like that. But-”

“Once, someone who hurt me asked me upfront to forgive her. She hadn’t done a damn thing to fix the damage she did, but she could stand there with a straight face and tell me, ‘I’d like you to forgive me.’ I said no, of course. Forgiving her would be like letting her walk right over me and pretend like nothing had ever happened. That’s not what this is like. I might be shit at keeping people around, but I’m still going to do my best.”

“... I would really like it if you just got your eye looked at. Even just by me, like, come on, that thing is making me nervous, buddy.”

“Hah, I’m serious, it’s fine. If it wasn’t fine I swear I’d let you, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

“It gives me the creeps.”

“Then I won’t look at you, alright?”

Sphintus relented, at last, offering his hand to Hakuryuu, who leaned against the side of the sedan, his broken glass eye glinting sharply. “It’s not that bad. Yet. Just don’t stare, ‘kay? I don’t need demons spying on me through that thing.” 

“There are no demons looking through my weird eye, I think I’d know.” Hakuryuu snorted good-naturedly, shaking with his right hand. “Although… which eye is my weird eye now? I guess they’re both weird, but which is weirder?”

“Definitely the new one.” Sphintus chuckled, but in spite of himself, he kept his eye contact at a minimum. It wasn’t just the eye, it was how Hakuryuu carried himself. Sphintus couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was a difference. He was Hakuryuu, that was for sure, but with a strange miasma hanging about him. The current of something old swept around him, and the closer Sphintus stood, the more of it he felt. With his hand in Hakuryuu’s, he could smell it too, the scent of earth and rushing water and dry leaves. 

Or perhaps it was all in his head. 

In the field, Titus’s head popped up from the weeds near the circle of rocking horses, his hair full of dry grass and a burr stuck in his bangs. “It’s clear over here! He didn’t leave anything, and if he did the rain washed it off.” He stood, not bothering to brush himself off. “You guys done reconciling?” He was kind of cute when he was oblivious, Sphintus thought absently. For someone so smart, it was comical when Titus missed things hanging, in this case literally, right in front of his face. 

Smiling a little crookedly, Hakuryuu gently pulled the burr from his temple. “You missed one thing, at least. And yeah, we’re about done. What do we do now?”

Sphintus wanted, badly, not to do anything at all. If he could have burrowed himself into the dirt with the cicadas and the worms, he would have. But it could no longer be said that he didn’t believe in Hakuryuu’s quest; the proof was right there on his friend’s face, had been there in the field just a few meters away. There was, however, no walking away. The thing- person, devil, whatever he was- in the field had called to Sphintus too, and he had known his name. “Let’s try the spinny top trick again,” he suggested, doing his best to be nonchalant, “it worked this morning.”

“Are you sure?” Hakuryuu asked, his voice wavering with another question; didn’t Sphintus want to give up? Go home?

“Nah,” Sphintus answered simply, “I’m not big on giving up. We got pretty close, right? We just have to keep looking for him, and we’ll figure this all out in no time.” 

His mouth quirked in a smile, Hakuryuu nodded, going right for the map and the toy, which he left in the passenger’s seat. Squatting down, he unfolded the map in the gravel, trying to make it as level as possible before releasing the top dead center. The top spun pathetically, wobbling and tilting before spilling off the grid and landing in the dirt. 

Getting down beside him, Sphintus snorted loudly. “Here, let me show you how it’s done.” If Hakuryuu didn’t know how to spin a top properly, that was his problem. Grabbing it, Sphintus shined it like an apple on his pants before giving it another whirl. This time, the top gave an enthusiastic whizzing noise, leaping off a crease in the map like a ski jump. 

Titus rolled his eyes, fetching it from where it landed. “Big talk for a guy who can’t do it either. You should just watch and learn!” He straightened out the map, clearing his throat before slowly and deliberately spinning the top. This time it worked, the top blurring into a streak of color before moving steadily towards their position. It passed the forest and Sudbury Road and the place where the ring of rocking horses stood, stopping just further north. 

“At this rate, we can catch him again, probably.” Titus tried to measure the scale of the map. “That’s only a few miles north, I think. If we go right now, we should be able to.”

Hakuryuu was already getting back into the car. “I want to hurry, of course, but I’m not worried about him leaving. I think he wants us to keep catching up with him.” As Hakuryuu left the direct sunlight, Sphintus could see the cracks shot through his eye gleam with an inner light. 

“If that’s really what you think, I won’t argue.” Sphintus slid back down into the driver’s seat. “I do have a pretty pressing question though. I know I promised I wouldn’t let it bother me, but can you just tell us how that,” he gestured quickly to his own eye, “happened?”

For a moment Hakuryuu looked contemplative before he burst into quiet laughter. “You know, it sounds so ridiculous now… he spit in my eye, he just… he was all, ‘hold still, I have a present’ and then he just… spit?” He wheezed, trying to contain himself before leaning heavily against the back of the driver’s seat to catch his breath.

“Ew? Also, you saw him again? What else happened?” Sphintus shuddered inwardly. Did he have any idea how many germs that probably transferred?

Hakuryuu sat back up-right, making a face. Was he blushing or was it just Sphintus’ imagination? “I have this feeling like I shouldn’t tell you. It was kind of just between us and… I guess I can tell you the gist of it. I told him a story about me, and he told me about himself. We’re a lot more alike than I would’ve thought. And no, I’m not bullshitting you on that.”

“Do you mean to say that he’s human too?” Titus asked.

“Yeah, I do. He was a person once, or still is one. Something happened to him, an outside force, something that rose up and changed him. I’m starting to understand the shape of what we’re actually dealing with.” Oddly enough to Sphintus, Hakuryuu sounded different too, but he could not put his finger on what had changed in his voice.

“Because of your eye?” He asked, unsure whether he wanted to know what Hakuryuu could see or not.

“Because of my eye,” Hakuryuu agreed, and in the shade of the backseat, it seemed to gleam brighter. “I can see things… I won’t tell you specifics. I’m sure soon you’ll be able to see it all too. Judal is just the visible part of a larger thing people can’t normally touch or feel, I think. Wherever he goes, he breaks reality, but it’s like the tip of an iceberg being so much smaller than the huge part in the depths, invisible from the surface. He’s the tip, and the rest of this is the depths, and I haven’t seen anything yet.”

Sphintus felt both unsatisfied and chilled. What exactly could he see? Maybe he didn’t want to be able to see it too if it was like that. 

“Ugh, Hakuryuu, you’re not cool because you can suddenly see weird stuff.” Titus grouched as Sphintus took them back onto the gravel road. “Like the saying goes, secrets secrets are no fun…”

“Yeah, unless you tell everyone, but it’s not a secret really,” Hakuryuu continued, apologetically, “and if you can’t see it, I just don’t think there’s any way I can describe it to you that’ll do it justice.”

Sphintus found himself smiling. “It’s okay, really. If we’re meant to see whatever you can, it’ll happen sooner rather than later. If it doesn’t, though, no hard feelings. I think a guy like me might be better off not knowing.”

***

The first sign that anything had gone wrong was the clock on the car dashboard. It blinked at twelve o'clock, the minutes no longer adding up. The second was the way the golden rays of sunlight slanted, strange angles that made the road feel like a ghost town. The third, of course, was Hakuryuu’s presence in the back seat. When Sphintus wasn’t looking at him in the rearview mirror, there was a sensation of indelible wrongness issuing from behind him, like there was a space meteorite or a tube of radium strapped into the seat instead of a person.

When they hit the main road, the cars on either side were blurred in a way that made Sphintus feel like he was looking at them from the bottom of a deep lake. Did they look the same to anyone else on the road? He wondered, blinking hard every few seconds, in hopes the mirages would fade. 

Titus, too, was bewildered. “I feel weird.” He mumbled, rubbing his arms like he was cold, although he had no goosebumps to be seen. “Are we driving on the wrong side of the road? I mean, I don’t think we are but that’s what it feels like.”

Hakuryuu sighed, leaning forward to address them. “No, we’re not. We must just be trapped in between. Not really in one world or the other anymore. We’re straddling the line of reality. Sorry, ugh, that sounds so melodramatic, but it’s true.”

Straddling the line of reality, Sphintus thought, numbly. Was it Hakuryuu’s latest encounter with Judal that had caused this? Whatever the case, he certainly didn’t know how to step back on his own side of the line, and oddly enough, he found he was beyond caring.


	17. Keeping Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all sorry this one took so long!! I have been really busy lately :,) but it's here! and more will follow!

If Hakuryuu hadn’t already been partially immersed in Judal’s world, whatever that entailed, he probably wouldn’t have believed a single thing he saw inside Alaska Pete’s or out of it. Under other circumstances, he might have checked himself into the hospital for possible head trauma. Then again, as the saying went, seeing was indeed believing.

He’d had to fight his way through floor to ceiling cobwebs in order to simply get back outside. Whether they’d been there before or not was a simple question; they had been, but they’d been under some invisible layer, and once that had been peeled away, they were free to touch him and vise-versa. Which he really could’ve done without, but what was done was done. The sun was beginning to show its face again outside, and though it seemed further away than it had before the rain, it stung Hakuryuu’s eye as he stepped out into its half-hearted light. 

That was when he saw the first animal. A cartoonish, almost too-brightly colored rabbit hopped past, its fuschia coat plainly visible in the marigolds. If he could have, much like Alice following the white rabbit down its hole, Hakuryuu would have ran after it, but the astonishment made the sight seem too unreal to bother with, and on the bluff he’d slid down from, he could see the blond of Titus’s head come into view. 

Of course, that was nothing compared to the highway. He wasn’t quite sure what Sphintus and Titus were seeing, but it was clear they were seeing something of the visions that danced through Hakuryuu’s line of sight everywhere he looked. As they drove on, the car settling into an uneasy silence, it seemed to Hakuryuu like the sky was tearing open, leaving a crystallized blur like a nebula to settle over the odd twilight blue. There were unseen eyes watching Hakuryuu, too, and he could feel them like crossbow bolts in his side. 

“We’re almost there,” Titus said quietly, his voice almost lost under the strange background hum in Hakuryuu’s ears, “just go right off the next exit and kinda curve around…” He trailed off, shivering again. 

Hakuryuu had no doubt that with every passing second he was pulling his friends deeper with him into the netherworld (he could not think of any other words to describe it), and that very soon they would be completely immersed along with him. How would they get out? He wondered, absently. How could he explain this to them when he didn’t understand it himself? Judal might understand, but something told him that Judal wasn’t the master of his own circumstances either. He would know more, though…

They just had to catch back up with him. 

By the time they reached the center of the coordinates, it was still as though no time had passed at all. Sphintus cruised slowly into a wide parking lot, bordered on three sides by interlocking stripmalls. In the center, its face stained the gold of an ancient tomb, a small clock tower overlooked the road, and none of the hands were moving. Cars sat in the lot, and all of them were empty. Parking in front of a deserted TJ Max, Sphintus got out of the car and stared up at the clock in a daze. “It’s probably broken,” he muttered, but it seemed to Hakuryuu that he was trying and failing to convince himself that nothing was wrong.

“He’s gotta be here, but where?” Hakuryuu joined him, and for the first time noticed the shadows. They were all wrong, most of them facing the sun, and lurking under the awnings of shops, they slumped and crept like beasts. 

“L-let’s split up!” Titus hopped out, his teeth chattering. Goosebumps were raised on his arms. “I know it n-never works in Scooby Doo or w-whatever, but it’s a good way to cover more g-ground.”

“Before we do that,” Hakuryuu grabbed into the car for his duffel bag, pulling out a warmer, long sleeved jacket, “do you wanna borrow this?”

Titus shook his head. “I’m okay, r-r-really. I think it’s in my head.”

“Right, okay, but I’ll put it on the seat if you need it. I think we should each take a side and search it. I’ll do the back strip, Titus you do the left and Sphintus, you take the right. If we find anything, let’s meet back up at the clock… or meet there anyway before too long.”

Sphintus snorted. “Okay, because we’re supposed to know how much time is passing?”

 

“Fuck, you’re right. Alright how about this, everybody sing a song quietly, and once you finish it three times then you come back. Just pick one that’s about three to five minutes long.”

Titus laughed, some of the anxiety leaving his posture. “Jeez R-ryuu, do we really wanna scare the g-guy away? Sphintus c-can’t sing for shit.”

“Hey! I’m not that bad!”

“Sphintus, you’re not allowed to sing,” Hakuryuu withheld a laugh, feeling a tiny bit of normalcy come back to him, “you do the song in your head. We’ll know if you didn’t because we won’t find a damn thing.”

His cheeks turning a little darker, Sphintus grumbled his agreement. “Can we just go already?”

“Of course, why didn’t you just say so?” Hakuryuu let a smile return to his face, clapping Sphintus playfully on the shoulder before giving a tiny two-fingered salute and starting across the tarmac towards the back strip. As he drew near, he could read the flickering neon and fluorescent signs above each rental space. A store that sold only birds, a chinese take-out, a thrift store with racks of clothes spilling onto the mall. Walking past these, he began to hum under his breath the only song that managed to bob up like a cork from the stew of his thoughts; Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You.

He almost stopped humming when he spotted the Spirit Halloween. It took him a few moments to remember it was actually May, not anywhere near October. There it was anyway, ignoring its own anachronism, the door propped open with a rubber stopper. What other place could it be? Following his instincts, Hakuryuu stepped inside.

It smelled thickly of plastic, a lone floor fan providing just enough motion to stir the scent through the entire room. The skeletal black wire racks were covered in packaged costumes from floor to ceiling. Hakuryuu walked slowly, his steps echoing weirdly, peering around the displays, but the only movement came from the fan, whirring frantically in his peripheral vision. There was nothing out of place here except for the store itself, no strange creatures or shapes. It was both a relief and a disappointment. 

Near a display case full of fake plastic weapons, Hakuryuu began to detect another smell, mixed under the plastic miasma. The same mildewed scent of Alaska Pete’s, drifting ghost-like through the room, plus a little something like mud. Like the smell of receding bay-water, he thought faintly. No sooner than the thought passed, he heard a familiar voice call to him from the changing rooms at the back of the store.

“Hey, Hakuryuu, wanna lend a hand and come zip this up?”

Hakuryuu knew better than to let himself be surprised by Judal again. “I’ve only got one, but it’ll have to do!” He called back, working his way to the curtained stalls. Two were open, but the last one was closed. A shadow wiggled beneath the hem of the curtain, something snakelike, and for a brief moment the scent of neglect rose up to threaten Hakuryuu with nausea. 

Judal flung open the curtain, and the shadow vanished, along with the scent. He was wearing what Hakuryuu could only numbly think of as a huge pink asscrack before the stem and the leaf sunk in. “No.” He shook his head, trying not to laugh. “No, I’m not… I’m not zipping that.”

“It’s pronounced ‘wow, that’s a great costume of a great fruit, where’d you find that?’ Judal groused, stepping out of the poorly designed peach. “I am hurt, Hakruyuu, wounded even.” His tone was relatively lucid in spite of his costume choice, and Hakuryuu saw that his eyes had mellowed to a reddish-brown, like the color of an expensive mahogany table. He was wearing torn denim shorts, and a tattered sleeveless shirt with a phrase in Cyrillic written across it. 

“I know you can do better than that,” Hakuryuu crossed his arms, “there are like a million costumes here, there’s one that will fit you better.” He wasn’t going to mention that it wasn’t Halloween. If he did, how would he get Judal talking about anything else? 

Judal shrugged. “Hmph. Okay, say there are, you’ll help me pick the best one right?”

“What kind of a friend would I be if I let you wear something dumb?”

As if he was completely deaf, Judal left the changing room and headed for the second worst costume Hakuryuu had ever seen. “This?” Judal grinned hopefully, offering the ‘sexy crayon’ package in Hakuryuu’s direction.

“What did I just say,” Hakuryuu muttered, but he couldn’t help the smile trying to creep across his face. 

“Fine, no hot crayon, what about this one?”

“Judal, that’s for a kid.”

“A really cool kid!”

“No.”

“This?”

Hakuryuu couldn’t help his laughter. “I am so fucking sorry, I’m not letting you wear a fried egg suit.” He scooped the package from Judal’s hands, marvelling at how easily the sense of comradery had fallen between them. This was weird, but it was a good weird, the way things were with Sphintus and Titus. Only they were totally human. How could it feel so natural to be near Judal now, when less than an hour before his presence had been completely alien? 

Judal noticed his lapse in focus. “Hey, somethin wrong?” He bent down, peering at him. “Besides the egg suit. It wasn’t a good idea anyway.”

“Oh, no. Not really.” Hakuryuu hung the costume back up, a ball of words forming on the tip of his tongue. An idea had come to him. If Judal was not the whole world he knew was there, the one he had one foot in, would it be so wrong to take him along? It might be a little awkward, but clearer and brighter the theories tumbled to the front of Hakuryuu’s mind. Judal was the symptom, part of this space and the key to entering. He just needed to know… “I have a question, though. What did you do to my eye?”

Judal straightened up. “That? It’s hard to explain,” his forehead creased in concentration, “I just… I heard… He- I knew it would work. To get you here, y’know?”

“Right. Here,” Hakuryuu swished his prosthetic in the air, “wherever that is. It worked for my friends too?”

“You came, and they’re kinda attached to you, so they came too.” Judal shrugged. “Man, I’m not a rocket scientist over here, what do you want me to tell you?”

More than before, Judal’s speech was clear, and his words were his. It was like scraping off new wallpaper to find a detailed mural underneath. Hakuryuu found himself wanting the whole picture. “Never mind. I have another question.”

“Do your worst, I’m listening!”

“Would you be alright with coming with us on our trip?” Hakuryuu swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Sphintus and Titus and I. It would be better if we all went together. Four heads are better than three. I think you wanted me to ask you. You can take us in and out of this… wherever we are, and this is just a guess but if you want something from us, we can help you get it. I’m asking you, as a friend. Would you like to come along?”

***

Titus walked and walked, his steps bouncing off the cavernous walls of the deserted BJ’s. It was the largest store in the strip, but he’d mostly only chosen it because of the potential for cracking jokes later on. Somewhat disappointingly, he was finding nothing at all, not a single sign of normal or paranormal life. He was still freezing cold, and no amount of rubbing his arms or blowing on his hands would make the cold dissipate. His heart beat frantically. Was he really cold, or was this something else? 

It didn’t matter. The store was empty, and Titus was alone, humming “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha, walking through the canyons of warehouse goods and cellophane-wrapped bundles, stacked to the far-away sky of sheet metal and hanging yellow lights. Faintly, he recalled a story his mother once told him. In it, there was a city of the dead, an empty city, left for nature to reclaim while ghosts invisibly wandered the streets. What had it been called? There was a name for that place, a fancy sounding name. It was-

“The necropolis,” Titus said, tasting the word. Yeah, that was right. Although, he had yet to actually confirm the existence of his own personal ghost, despite the things he told Sphintus. He took another turn, heading down an aisle of paper towels and toilet paper that seemed to last forever. Slowly, he finished humming the song, dragging out the last few lines. Now he really ought to return, before somebody worried about him. 

Just as he was about to turn back, a single sound pierced through the silence; the slap of a bare foot on the concrete floor. His friends instantly forgotten, Titus turned on his heel, dashing after it. This time he wouldn’t leave the mystery to drift away on its own. He was going to either find the source or get lost trying. 

Now, he thought, slightly giddy, I really understand Hakuryuu.

At first the sounds came slowly, but as Titus ran faster, working back around to the middle of the warehouse, they sped up, like rain turning from a drizzle to a downpour. Exhilarated, Titus knew whatever he was chasing must be just around the next corner. 

Bursting from an aisle lined with deep freezers, Titus almost fell into a display table covered in books. He stopped himself just in time, skidding to a halt before he could plow into a stack of middle grade adventure books. Shit, that was close. He stood still, trying to swallow his pants for air, his ears desperately tuning themselves to the frequency of the footsteps. The freezers hummed louder in his ears, and his heartbeat, angry now that he’d pushed himself so hard, let off gunshots against his eardrum. 

Try as he might to listen, there was nothing but the legion of freezers harmonizing. The noise seemed to amplify the longer he focused on it, until it was like a jumbo jet bearing down on him, and too late Titus realized that it wasn’t just the machines. His ears popped with immense pressure, and he stumbled back from the table as the piles of books swept themselves violently to the floor, bursting open like they were caught in a fierce wind, the pages shredding out and tearing themselves to pieces. The scraps scattered, some catching on Titus’s ankles, wrapping around them like fluttering hands. 

Whatever was doing this, Titus thought, holding his breath, it had his attention now. The red ribbon on his wrist shifted, pulling towards the ruined heap of paper. He would address it, he told himself, just once. No matter what the outcome was, he would run for the doors at the first opportunity. He would have to make it something good, though…

“Hey, it’s alright, you don’t have to smash things! I’m listening, I’m right here,” he spread his arms, welcomingly, “it’s really alright. If you want to tell me something, I’ll make sure I’m paying attention.”

The wind shifted, turning gentle, and the pages on the floor lay still. Titus found he was no longer cold. He held his breath, forgetting completely to release it, as he felt the air around him shift and warm, almost like a clumsy hug. 

***

Sphintus spent his four minutes wandering in circles around a deserted laundromat. By the end, he was overwhelmingly grateful that nothing popped out at him. He was on Hakuryuu’s side and all, but two close encounters in one day was just too much. Gratefully, he left the laundromat, stepping back into the all-encompassing orange glow of the frozen sun. 

Neither of his friends were back outside. Sphintus milled around the car, deliberating whether or not to lean on the hood like a cool guy in a movie, but decided not to. After a minute or two, he started to worry. What if something got them? What if Hakuryuu misjudged Judal and he dragged them into a hidden lair and ate them like a vengeful spider? Sphintus decided he would count to a hundred in his head, and then he would go after them.

He got to forty-five by the time Hakuryuu, leading Judal by the hand, walked out into the lot. This had better be good, he thought, the pit of his stomach full of dread. Like seeing the stripes on a poisonous animal, Judal’s presence now spurred a conditioned fear in him. 

“What’s he doing here?” He asked, managing to keep his voice steady.

Judal grinned, although it was a mere shadow of the fearsome smirk he’d worn earlier. “Just tagging along! Hakuryuu promised you wouldn’t mind, and we’ve got lots of work to do. Consider me like, your official tour guide.”

“Tour guide…?”

Titus, out of breath, his cheeks glowing with exertion, sped across the parking lot to join them. He was huffing and panting, and Sphintus couldn’t help but wonder what had befallen him. He’d have to ask later, of course. “What’s… going on?” He wheezed, out of breath. 

“I asked Judal nicely, and he said he would be able to move us back into the real world,” Hakuryuu said, carefully, “and that he’d also like to come on our vacation.”

“Sounds… okay to me…”

“So you’re gonna explain everything?” Sphintus asked. The least he could do was try to understand any of this. He had a feeling he’d soon find out first-hand what it was like to be a victim of alien abduction that nobody would believe. 

Judal shrugged. “Yeah, what I know. What I feel like. But it’s a trade, y’know? I’ll only scratch your back if you scratch mine later.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Judal wanted something wrong them too? Sphintus shot a glance at Hakuryuu, but Hakuryuu only gave a subtle shrug, not seeming to know or unwilling to tell him what it meant.


	18. Satellite Drift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright y'all get ready for longer chapters because from here on out that's what you get :))))))

It was rainy in Gloucester that night- or early morning, depending on who you asked- and the one am blackness wrapped the McDonald’s Playplace in a complete cover of night. Sphintus, who was used to long nights studying, held himself up over a carton of fries, picking exhaustedly at them. Titus, meanwhile, had gotten up to test the depth of the ball pit, and had fallen asleep in it. Hakuryuu was tired too, but he could not sleep. Not now. Not with Judal sitting right next to him on a colorful plastic chair, sipping nonchalantly at a strawberry milkshake as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

They had driven away from the strip-mall in the hazy orange light, Judal squished against the glass side of Hakuryuu’s terrarium in the backseat, though he didn’t seem to mind much. He leaned over the mesh top, peeking down at the various carnivorous plants, unusually fascinated with them. 

But as they went, the sky quickly melted into deep, unfathomable darkness. The clock on the car radio blinked, numbers scrambling to read ‘11:55’. Instead of the empty road, rows of other cars and bright headlights blurred into existence beside them, and Sphintus almost drove into the median in shock. 

In the space of twenty minutes or so, the entire day had gone by. 

Hakuryuu blinked up at the bright lights above the multi-colored tubes and crawl spaces of the McDonald’s Playplace. He had too many questions, but which of them could Judal answer? Maybe it was best not to ask anything, and just let whatever was happening continue to happen. 

“Why me?” He settled on asking. “There are other people interested in you. There’s this guy I talk to online who has a whole little blog about you. I mean, that’s how I realized I saw you… but anyway, why me and not him?”

Judal shrugged, giving a particularly loud slurp on his straw. “Eh, I don’t know. You were interesting? And you started following me first, remember?”

Titus snored loudly in the ball pit, shifting so he slipped down further inside it.

Sighing, Sphintus cast a look towards him. “Not to interrupt, but should I get him out of there? And where are we sleeping, anyway?”

“Nearest hotel I can find. And I guess if you want?” Hakuryuu smiled, grabbing for his phone. “Just wait a few seconds, I need evidence of this to show him when he wakes up.”

“Can we get room service?” Judal piped up, tossing his empty shake cup into the deep end of the ball pit, ignoring the trash can a few feet away. “I’ve always wanted room service. Like rich people!”

Sphintus swallowed, clearly trying to work up the courage to address him normally. “I don’t think… they’re open this late. The staff might get pissed if we try. Also, I have a question too.”

Judal yawned. “Please make it not boring?”

“How are you real? Are you real? I just don’t get it.” Sphintus looked him over with utmost skepticism. 

Holding out an arm, Judal made a face. “I don’t know, but I’m probably real. You can poke me if it makes you feel any better.”

“It probably won’t,” Sphintus admitted, but he poked Judal’s arm anyway like he was just making sure.

Hakuryuu got up, stretching out his legs. “I’m gonna get Titus out of there. If we leave him any longer it’ll probably swallow him up like quick sand.” Wading partially into the ball pit, he gently shook Titus’s shoulder. “Hey, Titus, we’re leaving. Time to wake up.” Hakuryuu’s newly altered right eye gave a jitter, and for a moment it seemed like the plastic of the Playplace was a glowing iridescent material that glistened in the light like it was wet. He blinked hard, trying to ignore it. “Titus? Okay, up we go.” Getting his arm under Titus’s, Hakuryuu dragged his exhausted friend out of the play area. 

Titus shifted, opening one eye. “What the… oh no, did I go to sleep in there?” He mumbled as Hakuryuu led him towards the doors. “That’s so gross, I bet kids have thrown up in that…”

“Or worse!” Judal put in, hopping up and joining the shuffling parade out to the parking lot, where the thin rain made the asphalt shine like a strange mirror beneath their feet.

The nearest hotel, as it turned out, was only a block away. The Atlantis Oceanfront Inn desk clerk wasn’t too happy about letting Hakuryuu rent a room so late at night, but after a solid ten minutes of waiting around in the lobby, Hakuryuu found himself with the keys to a two-bed suite with a wonderful view of the parking lot. 

Titus passed out again instantly, wiping out on top of the bed covers, his head not even reaching the pillows. Sphintus, the bags under his eyes now almost as prominent as they were during midterms, dragged a few suitcases across the flat, slightly stained carpet before deciding to join Titus in sleep- though, he at least had the energy left to feed his snake and tuck himself into bed before drifting off.

Which left Hakuryuu, Judal, one bed, and a chair. Hakuryuu felt wired, his eyes dry and his head buzzing. He would have to at least try and sleep though, right?

Just as he thought that, Judal ejected himself from his seat in a blue easy chair, the only real furniture in the room. “Now that your pals are asleep, wanna go on an adventure? If you let me take you, I promise I’ll show all of you some cool shit tomorrow.”

Hakuryuu nodded, somewhat relieved. He wouldn’t have to pretend to sleep now, at least. “Should I really be trusting you? Let me guess, this is a surprise, and you won’t tell me what we’re doing until I can figure it out myself.”

Judal grinned, and his edges began to blur again, small lines and dots of deepest shadow flickering around him. “You got that right! Now seriously, c’mon, or I won’t show you!”

Hakuryuu cast a small look back at his friends, peacefully asleep, Titus snoring lightly. He felt a little bit bad to leave them out. But there would be more adventures tomorrow. Or later today, he reminded himself absently. Besides, this was for him and Judal alone. He nodded again, grabbing his wallet and heading for the faded white door of the hotel room. “Let’s go.” He said, and he stepped back out into the soft rainshower.

Even though the hotel had the word oceanfront in its name, it hardly seemed close to the sea at all until Judal led Hakuryuu around the back, past a few tightly packed in dumpsters, onto an empty street that faced the backs of the dunes. The dampness was all around, and Hakuryuu felt as though his lungs were filling with water and the smell of salt. Ignoring a sign stuck in the sand, Judal began to climb over the dunes, kicking up a few tussocks of breach grass. Hakuryuu looked both ways, making sure no one was watching them break the law before following him. 

The beach itself was disorienting, to say the least. On the flat sand, beneath the moonless blackness of the rainclouds, Hakuryuu felt as though his physical body hadn’t followed the rest of him over the dunes. He walked after Judal as if in a dream, sand sifting into his shoes, a ghost-like wind pulling his sleeves. It wasn’t a bad feeling though, Hakuryuu realized. There was no fear. The night sky had simply wrapped its arms so far around him that he couldn’t remember the daylight. 

Judal stopped in front of the ocean, an impossibly black abyss in the already ever-present shade. He spread his arms and let the rainfall, breathing in and out. His bare feet pushed into the wet silt, making trenches for the gently lapping waves to fill. Standing beside him, Hakuryuu felt a bizarre peace like no other feeling he’d ever known. 

“The ocean,” Judal turned to him, eyes glowing like a nocturnal creature of prey, “it’s so dark. It goes down forever and ever. How does that make you feel, Hakuryuu?” Not giving him a chance to reply, Judal made a strange motion with his hand, and just as he did on the road leaving Alaska Pete’s and in the stripmall, Hakuryuu felt the outer rind of the world come undone and drift away on the tide. 

Suddenly, there was a moon. A fat, pink moon, hovering like the eye of a distant and colossal god over the ocean. Judal was turning slowly under its light, on a beach covered in white crab molts as far as Hakuryuu could see. “Come on Hakuryuu, loosen up! You’re special. You’re here for a reason. Cause I… I understand you. And you understand me too. So let it go, okay?” Judal urged, shooting him a grin that sent a shiver down his spine. A good shiver, though, he decided.

Hakuryuu kicked off his shoes, letting them fall end over end up the sand. “Show me more then,” he insisted, and Judal grabbed for his hand, pulling him up the mauve beach. 

“I don’t need to show you anything. You can already see!” Judal tapped his own right eye, and lifted his other hand to the sky. Swimming above them, in a second, invisible sea, were creatures Hakuryuu thought only existed in the deepest ocean trenches. Glowing eels, spidering creatures that dangled and pranced in the air, squid and anglers, a multitude of bioluminescence. 

Hakuryuu tried to keep himself from gasping, but the sound fell out anyway. “How is this…”

“Like I said, I have no fucking idea,” Judal snorted, “what do I look like, a guy with answers? I do half the weird shit I do for kicks just to mess with people, but at least I know where it’s coming from- me. With all the rest, I can’t explain. You could grill me all fucking night, I still wouldn’t know.”

“So it is an act?” Hakuryuu asked, amused. 

“Mostly, yeah.” Judal clearly couldn’t help smiling smugly. “Sometimes I really do feel kinda weird upstairs, but that’s probably just me as a person. I don’t really know how to explain what happened to me to make me this way, y’know? I never had a chance to tell someone about it before, so now I’m kinda stuck on what to say.”

“Hey, that’s okay,” Hakuryuu said, “it’s okay to not know, I think. Knowing things is hard. I don’t know a lot of things, and I’ve been at a top-rated college for three years. There’s always new confusing shit. There’s always old confusing shit. If you ever figure it out though, I want to hear.”

“You would?” Despite the pink moon and the alien beachscape and the zoo of abyss creatures above them, Judal had never looked more human. 

Hakuryuu grinned, nodding. “Of course I would! Like, holy shit I’ve followed you this far, and we do understand each other. I want to know… well, I want to know everything.” 

For an instant, Judal looked elated. Then, in the blink of an eye, he spun away from Hakuryuu and ran for the pitch-black waves. “I’m gonna swim! You should come too!”

Hakuryuu, unlike Judal, still had to care about his clothes getting wet. But then again, did he dare to take off his shirt? He was only really comfortable being shirtless around Titus and Sphintus, even post-op. 

Ah, what the heck, he decided, wriggling out of his shirt and shorts. Judal understood this. They were the same, and deep down, Hakuryuu wanted to be able to feel comfortable no matter what or who he was around. Wearing only a pair of grey, Old Navy boxers, he ran into the black water, feeling the small waves crash against his calves, the silt and pebbles sticking to his feet. 

“Wow. That was easy!” Judal gloated. “I only had to ask you like once.” He waded closer, his eyes flicking once over Hakuryuu’s chest. “Anybody ever tell you your collarbones are really nice?”

Hakuryuu quickly put his prosthetic to his neck. “I… no? What a weird thing to focus on…” He muttered, but he couldn’t stop his face from going a little pink. Good thing it would blend in with the weird moonlight.

“Cause they are.” Judal’s eyes flashed, excitedly. “Let’s race! I bet I can swim way faster than you.”

“Race to where?”

“Hm… that orange bobber thing! Now let’s go!”

***

The sun was coming up by the time Judal restored the veil on the world. Exhausted but happy, dripping wet, covered in salt and sand, Hakuryuu walked with him up the beach, which was beginning to brighten with the impending dawn. Hakuryuu had a large piece of kelp stuck in his hair, which he barely noticed until Judal pulled it out and tied it around his own wrist like a bracelet. 

“I guess I have to take a shower now.” Hakuryuu snorted as they crossed the road back over to the inn. “And then I’ll get a cool twenty minutes of sleep before somebody else wakes up and wants to keep going before they get bored. You’re still going to take us all somewhere cool, right?”

“How could I not?” Judal replied, wringing out his braid, a trail of water droplets following him on the pavement. “That was the most fun I’ve had in like forever. I love attention, I can’t say that enough. Plus you’re pretty cool too.”

Hakuryuu laughed, shaking his head. “My friends definitely think you’re not real, I’m pretty sure. Like you’re a shared hallucination we’re all having. They’ll come around though, I know they will.”

Judal pouted, wiping off his hands on his soaking wet pants. “Uh, they better, I’m too cool to not believe in!”

They closed the door to the hotel room just as the sun broke the horizon. 

***  
Titus woke up a few times during the night. The first, to itch his leg. The second, to worry incoherently if the ball pit in McDonald’s was going to make him sick. And third, because Sphintus had him in one of his classic sleep-time bear hugs. 

At first, he was too sleepy to care. It was just a bizarre feeling of entrapment, and his tired brain assumed it was because he rolled himself up in the blanket like a burrito. As Titus steadily climbed up the last lip of his sleep cycle into consciousness, he became aware of the soft breath on his shoulder, and the bubble of warmth that could only have been created by another human person. 

Titus’ initial instinct was to wake him up, but if he was reading the clock on the bedside table right, it was four in the am, and he had a feeling neither of them really needed to be awake. And besides… Titus kind of liked the way it felt for Sphintus to hold him, even if it was in the crushing embrace of coma-like sleep. 

He sighed through his nose and tried to get comfortable. He managed to loosen Sphintus’ grip just enough that it wasn’t constricting his diaphragm. There. They were basically snug as bugs. 

Not thinking about it any more than that, Titus let sleep claim him for a final time that night. 

He woke up for good at eight twenty. This time, the room was vaguely lit by sunlight from beyond the tightly drawn curtains near the door. Sphintus was still holding onto him for dear life, but Titus couldn’t go back to sleep now. He was hungry, and sort of had to pee. On the other bed, he could see a lump under the stiff, sea-shell patterned comforter. “Hakuryuu?” Titus wiggled forward, freeing himself a bit. “A little help?”

But Hakuryuu was out cold. Titus tried again. “Hello? Anybody?”

Judal unfolded himself from the easy chair, stretching and rubbing his eyes. “Oh, hey, you’re pretty stuck there huh?” He chuckled, peering over at Titus’ bed.

Titus sighed. “Yeah. I don’t think he’s waking up. He kind of always does this, he just usually grabs something like a pillow instead of a real person.”

“Here, I got an idea,” Judal wiggled his fingers, and the air temperature plummeted. Sphintus groaned, opening one eye and mumbling incoherently. 

“H-hey I think it worked! Can you make it warm again though?” Titus asked, his teeth chattering as he took the opportunity to push Sphintus into a warmer cavern of blankets. “Finally now I can pee!” Whatever, he was too tired to care if anybody knew. He took a step out of bed and then paused. “Uh, thanks. Why did you help?”

Shrugging, Judal made a noise. “I mean, we’re vacation buddies? I’m already basically friends with Hakuryuu I think, and isn’t the way friendship works contagious? Like, you gotta be nice to all the people your original friend likes?”

“Being friends is weird,” Titus said, “until a few years ago I didn’t have like any. And now I have two really good ones, and that’s enough. You’re asking me but I don’t know either. The most important part is having fun with people you enjoy though, right?”

Judal nodded slowly. “Sure, yeah. That makes sense at least. I used to think it was a waste of time.” He didn’t add onto that.

Titus shuffled in the direction of the bathroom, really feeling its call to him. “It probably isn’t! Anyway now I super have to go, bye!” He scooted the last few feet, closing the door with great relief. 

By the time he returned, Titus found everyone awake. Sphintus was hovering over the steaming, white plastic coffee pot, staring at each individual drip of caffeine as it fell. Hakuryuu was sitting up in bed, Judal kneeling on his comforter, and it seemed like they were looking at Hakuryuu’s road map. 

Sphintus looked up as he returned, wincing. “Hey, sorry I kinda used you like a stuffed animal. Was I that difficult to get away from?”

Laughing, Titus shook his head. “No, no, it’s cool! I just had to use the bathroom, but if I didn’t I would’ve been fine waiting for you to get up by yourself. It was kind of nice actually!”

“Shit okay, that’s a relief.” Sphintus turned back to the coffee pot, which was now steaming. “This damn thing must’ve been like five dollars, because it’s not working. Hakuryuu is gonna be pissed if there’s none left for him. If it does one drip every ten seconds, how long will it take to do a whole cup?”

Titus patted the machine, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Huh. It depends how many drips make a cup. Or we could go somewhere else for a quick coffee before we move on?”

“Alright…” Sphintus stood up, turning off the pot. “Goodnight, my sweet prince. Hey Hakuryuu, do you want the two sips of coffee in this?”

Hakuryuu looked up, made a face, and shrugged. “Is there sugar? Just stick one packet in there and I’ll drink it out of the thing.”

Laughing, Judal fell back on the bed. “You’re really gonna just fucking… you’re gonna drink that shit right out of the pot?”

“Nothing I haven’t done before. Once I made spaghetti in one of those. It’s a living.” Hakuryuu eagerly reached for the pot once Sphintus poured in a packet of sugar, letting it cool for a moment or two before pouring it down the hatch. 

Judal popped back up, rubbing his hands together. Titus was briefly reminded of a fly rubbing its forelegs together. “We’re going on a trip! A safari!” Judal announced. “Hakuryuu basically just gave me all the rights of a tour guide and he said I’m allowed to drive-”

“Wha- hey I didn’t say that!”

“Okay, so I can’t drive. But I get to tell who’s driving where to go! And you have to call me captain.”

“You don’t have to call him captain.”

“They can if they want to! Anyway, let’s go? I’m getting bored?” 

Hakuryuu grabbed a bundle of clothes from his backpack. “I saw a Dunkin’ over by the McDonald’s last night. We can hit that for breakfast as soon as we’re all dressed. Judal, do you… need to eat?”

Looking puzzled, Judal hummed a thoughtful note. “I don’t… know. It’s hard to remember? I like eating cause it’s fun, and I wouldn’t want to stop, so I probably haven’t stopped for long enough where I’d be able to tell I was supposed to stave and I like, wasn’t. Can I get hash browns though?”

***

Fifteen minutes later, Judal sat squeezed once again in the backseat, several wax paper bags of hash browns in his lap. Scooping them with greasy fingers into his mouth, he devoured them with all the ease that a whale swallows krill. Titus watched him occasionally in the rear view mirror. Of all the kinds of scientific study he knew, two came to mind that would fit this situation- a naturalistic observation and a case study. Though, a natural observation might be more accurate. He was changing very little about the conditions Judal was living under, but even without an independent variable, he could still watch and learn bit by bit. 

Titus laughed softly to himself, his lips quirking. He really couldn’t stop thinking about school, not even on break. This wasn’t a project, he was supposed to be relaxing! But on the other hand, it was too interesting to just sit back and ignore. Every once in awhile, Judal would poke the back of the driver’s seat, telling Sphintus where to turn. He was no longer looking at the map, but he still seemed to know exactly where they were heading. 

“So you won’t give me any hints? No riddles or anything?” Hakuryuu asked. “I have a feeling you like those. We’re gonna go into this completely blind?”

Judal gulped down another handful of hash browns. “I could think of one, but it’ll be more fun without it, y’know?”

Where could Judal want to go? Perhaps it was to give them a small tour of his unfamiliar world in a location that would be particularly striking. Titus puzzled, drifting off into thought as the green world blurred past the windows of the car. 

They were sticking near the coast, at least so far. When they entered the outskirts of another oceanside town, smaller and more antiquated than Gloucester, Titus could practically smell brine, though none of the windows were open. 

“There!” Judal sat up excitedly in his seat, pointing to a massive brownstone building overlooking a meandering pier. “That’s where I wanna go!”

“It’s… a whaling museum?” Hakuryuu chuckled, looking to Judal. “Wait, I’m a little bit confused. You just want to visit the museum?”

“Fuck yeah, I love museums. I try and see em all, you know? Mess with the people in there, like I messed with you guys? But also cause they’re cool and interning in one always kinda stuck with me.” Judal grinned, looking up at the museum. “I’ve always heard cool things about this one!”

“Well, shit.” Sphintus parallel parked across the street from the building, shutting off the car and pocketing the keys. “To think like a minute ago I was actually scared. I’m cool with learning about whale stuff. That’s good, that’s… normal.”

Titus hopped out of the car. “Yeah, and we like museums too! Obviously. Are there any sculptures in there, do you know?”

“Oh yeah, sculptures!” Sphintus nodded enthusiastically. “What about those?”

“I don’t think so?” Judal replied, not waiting for Hakuryuu to get out before clambering over him. “Why?”

Bemused, Hakuryuu followed him. “We have a code on museums. If there are any statues with their dicks out we have to take a picture with them. It’s basically the rule of law in this friend group.”

Judal brightening, smirking. “That’s a good rule! Yeah, probably the best rule! I love it!”

It surprised Titus a little how easily Judal was fitting in. The longer he spent around him, the less intense the black hole feeling around him got. Sure, there was still the weird blur around his edges, or how crooked his limbs sometimes looked, or the strange tone his voice hit where it fractured into multiples, but weren’t weird friends just as good as any other kind? He was being probably just as friendly as a partially extra-dimensional person could be. 

***

Sphintus held his breath waiting for Judal to do something that would make him regret letting Hakuryuu bring him along, but for hours nothing happened. As they walked through the main hall of the museum, the dark wood floor creaking satisfyingly under their feet, it felt almost like Judal had been there the entire time. 

That was a good thing, right? Right. 

The hall was filled with whaling equipment, from antique lamps and harpoons, to an entire ship sitting stranded in the middle of the floor. Above it all though, were three complete whale skeletons, suspended on thin wires so that they seemed to levitate over the other exhibits. Their shadows fell in strange topographies on the floor. Although, somehow even more imposing than that was the smell of bay water and brine. 

Titus paused every few feet to look at at the whales. Which was kind of cute, Sphintus thought, absentmindedly. Was Titus blushing? He got extraordinarily excited on occasion when he experienced something new. His face was getting steadily more blotchy…

Dragging his gaze away from the whale bones, Titus blinked over at Sphintus. “Hm? What’s wrong?”

Yeah, that was no blush. “Titus not to be kind of a helicopter, but I think this place might be giving you… hives?” He winced. “Your face is…” He grabbed his phone, holding it up for Titus to see himself. It wasn’t getting worse, but the puffy red marks were definitely noticeable. 

Titus sighed heavily, frowning. “Shit. They don’t itch yet, so I can leave them. It might be the smell? Or like, the wood? Or the dust? I guess I play Russian allergy roulette every time I go somewhere new, huh?” He snorted a little at his own comment, smiling at his reflection in the black glass of Sphintus’ phone.

“If you start to feel sick, we gotta leave. Okay? Promise?”

Sneaking a grin at him, Titus shook his head slowly. “I promise, but now I get to rub it in your face that I was right and you totally are the mom friend.”

“If that’s the price I have to pay for your safety, then fine.”

Suddenly, Judal stopped walking, grabbing onto the sleeve of Hakuryuu’s shirt. “Wanna see something really funny?” He asked, his tone secretive but the volume of his words a far cry from a whisper. 

Hakuryuu shrugged. “It depends what it is. And if your idea of funny matches up with mine.”

“Oh, you’ll like this. I promise.” Judal quickly dragged Hakuryuu behind a stand of polished harpoons. Titus, clearly intrigued, went after them, leaving Sphintus to decide whether he wanted to stand alone in the aisle like a fool, or hide in an exhibit like an even bigger one. He chose his friends; what choice did he really have? For a few minutes they waited quietly until a small family wandered past, a father and his two daughters.

Judal watched them carefully, as if waiting for a hidden cue card. Then as though he was turning off a light switch, he raised a hand and quickly swatted it against the air. Sphintus felt a gentle breeze lift his hair, moving faster as it skirted his cheek. A handful of seconds passed before the nearest whale skeleton, a humpback positioned with its skeletal flippers extended, began to move. The flippers shifted slowly, the massive head swinging down in the direction of the family. Though the wires holding the mobile together did not snap or shift, the wind played across the bones, making the creature seem to swim through the air. 

One child noticed, gasping and pointing up at it. “Dad, dad, look!” She yanked on her father’s arm, trying to draw his attention away from a guidebook in his hands. “It’s swimming!”

Trying very hard to conceal laughter, Judal motioned again and its eyes began to glow with black light, giving the illusion of moving pupils. But the instant the girl’s father turned to look, he clenched his fingers into a fist. The whale stopped moving. The lights went out, and in less than a blink of the eye, the creature was motionless once more. 

Once the family moved on, the girl still noticeably bewildered by what she’d seen, Hakuryuu broke into a smile. “You thought you were messing with her, but honestly, that was kind of… I don’t know, cute?” He gave Judal a bemused look. “She’s probably going to remember that for the rest of her life. Think about all the times she’ll tell that story. You let her see a weird, cool thing, and you weren’t even trying that hard.”

Judal raised both eyebrows. “Okay, I didn’t see it that way, but I see your point.”

Sphintus looked back up at the whale. Well, here went his two cents. “If we all saw weird shit like that as kids, I think we would’ve grown up to be even weirder adults. Which isn’t a bad thing? I don’t know. A few days ago I didn’t think you were real or anything, but maybe if I had more of an open mind about it I would’ve believed in you more easily.”

Laughing, Titus poked him in the arm. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to! I like sceptical Sphintus, it keeps things interesting! You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t annoying or a stick in the mud sometimes! You’re fine the way you are.” 

In spite of how many times he reminded himself, Sphintus found himself unable to stop running those words over in his mind until they left the museum. Sceptical Sphintus, he thought, with a tiny smile. Maybe he would never be as good at leaving doubt behind as Hakuryuu or Titus, but he was none the worse for it. At least, not in Titus’ opinion, and that counted a lot. 

***

Hakuryuu stood on the steps of the museum alone, looking down the thin street, which was lined by gabled houses and black iron street lamps. The lamps were off, but the sun reflected off the glass in gauzy streaks like spiderwebs caught in the wind. Just inside the museum, only about ten feet behind him, Titus, Sphintus, and Judal were enjoying the gift shop. Hakuryuu had briefly perused the whale themed knick knacks, but somehow the street outside drew him more than corny fridge magnets.

He took a deep breath. It was really starting to smell like summer, even though it wouldn’t officially start for weeks. At first the briney bay odor had been overpowering, but as he grew accustomed to it, Hakuryuu could smell the flowers blooming in the window boxes of shops, and that particular scent of warm sunlight on pavement. 

Summer used to be the hardest time of the year, but this one Hakuryuu had a good feeling about. Even with the nebulous threat of his sister’s Bar-b-que, which he still wasn’t sure how to excuse himself from, it was definitely relieving to picture himself wearing normal summer clothes and going to the pool without it being some kind of shitshow. It would be as easy as it had felt to take off his shirt last night on the beach. Now that was a feeling he could get used to.

Seagulls whirled around in the sky like tiny angels, their white wings gliding almost elegantly against the blue expanse. They swirled together, occasionally crying out to one another. Hakuryuu blinked, and he felt his strange eye twitch out of his control. The gulls were suddenly larger, brighter, soaring and diving as though they felt no need to land. 

He blinked again, and they were average seabirds once more. Over the nearest clump of roofs, the steeple of a church jutted just high enough to glimpse, and one by one, the birds darted down to land on it. Did they roost there? Hakuryuu found himself wondering what the steeple looked like with the veil taken away. He poked his eyelid, trying to make his eye do whatever magic trick took away the wallpaper of the world, but nothing happened. It was probably just a timing thing. 

Judal, now wearing a massive tee shirt bearing the slogan ‘All’s whale that ends whale,’ bounced down the museum steps with Titus and Sphintus in tow. “Whatcha up to? You look so serious standing out here!” Judal knocked his shoulder, breaking his thoughts.

Pointing at the steeple, Hakuryuu tried to work out his request. “Could you put us back in your world for a minute? I’m just curious to see what this town looks like there. We did a normal thing… now can we poke around with something weird?”

Titus, his face unusually serious, nodded. “I’d like to go back in too. Only for a minute though, I don’t wanna waste too much time in the day!”

 

Seeming resigned, Sphintus shrugged. “Yeah, well, okay. You have my vote too.”

Looking positively gleeful, Judal agreed instantly. “Hell yeah I can! Field trip!” He hopped down the next few steps to street level, and as his feet hit the ground, Hakuryuu’s vision wavered. This time, it was night, and a brilliantly silver moon glided above in a black sky peppered with red winking stars. Or were they satellites? It was impossible to tell. The seagull-like birds had returned, beautiful and bright, catching flight on a nonexistent breeze. Now turned on, the streetlamps cast thick pools of orange light, like anglerfish in the abyss. 

Sphintus froze on the step beside Hakuryuu, his line of sight directed out towards the bay. “What the shit…” He muttered, pupils glassy. Concerned, Hakuryuu spun, trying to see whatever it was his friend saw. For a moment, there was only the still, dark water, perfectly motionless, a skein of silvery clouds gracing the horizon. 

But no, there was something moving, slowly and gracefully as the shadow of a sundial. With six infinitely long legs, it strode across the frozen bay, bright eyes blinking, equine head suspended on a neck longer and thinner than a giraffe’s. It was beautiful. It seemed far away, on a distant shore so far beyond what Hakuryuu could understand that it struck his mind as something divine.

“What is that?” Titus asked, having followed his friends’ stunned looks. Somehow, he was still curious enough about whatever it was to form an entire sentence. 

Judal shrugged, making a face. “I don’t know, y’all. I couldn’t tell you if you paid me. I see those sometimes. I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me. There’s all kinds usually, but they stay here and I don’t get close enough to find out. What, do you want me to go messing with that shit?”

Hakuryuu broke his gaze from the being and turned back to Judal. “No, but I kind of want to. What can I say, I have a talent for messing with shit I shouldn’t be. Why do you think I’m here with you?”

Judal seemed unable to help grinning, an almost-human expression writing itself across his face. Hakuryuu took a moment to reconsider; the creature on the water was divine, but Judal was both closer and boundlessly more interesting to Hakuryuu than some nameless entity on the horizon.


End file.
